


It’s not over until the Fat Lady sings

by halfnote



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery, Hogwarts Mystery
Genre: F/F, F/M, Post-Hogwarts, au-ish
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-24
Updated: 2019-03-03
Packaged: 2019-05-27 16:30:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 22,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15028631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/halfnote/pseuds/halfnote
Summary: It’s over. It’s your final day at Hogwarts. It’s time to say farewell to your friends and soon enough the start of new adventures.





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some endings are also beginnings...

Part I

Your last ride on the Hogwarts Express is a quiet one. Rowan and Ben are sitting in front of you. Rowan’s eyes deeply immersed on a book while Ben kept his eyes intent on the side window. You can understand them. You feel particularly nervous yourself. You are full -fledged witches and wizards now, we now have another role in society that is not a student. Ben had accepted an internship in the Committee on Experimental Charms under Gilbert Wimple. Giving his outstanding proficiency on charms it was really no surprise. Rowan, on the other hand, plans on moving back to the farm to help their family. They had become rather quiet and started reading Hogwarts a History for the 11th time once you brought up the possibility of them applying for assistant professor. You figured it was a rather sensitive subject and pushed it aside. Rowan would be a brilliant professor. Professor Binns could use an assistant for example.

You all have come a long way. From your first year in Hogwarts as eleven year olds, to curse breakers, to almost getting expelled to now ex-Hogwarts alumni. The road had not been an easy one but your friends and everyone who helped you along the way made it worth it. Your brother was safe now and the curse on all the vaults have been broken. The future could not look more promising than now.

The sound of the whistle woke all of you out of your reverie at once. Rowan had been reading the same pace for the last 10 minutes. You are the first one to stand up.

“Well friends, it seems this is our last train ride home,” you do not want to cry but there is a definite sadness in your voice you can’t quite drown out.

“I feel really scared, fellas.” He admits quietly.

Rowan and you exchange glances before all of you break into a loud fit of laughter. Some things never change.

“You’ll be fine Ben, you are an adult now,” You put your arm around his shoulder to show him comfort. Deep down you felt scared as well. You’ve been repeating those same words to yourself a lot lately.

“I don’t feel like an adult,” he answers flatly.

“Don’t’ worry Ben, we all feel that way,” of course, Rowan finds the best words of comfort. You feel Ben relax against you and let him go. You had a huge trunk to take care of. From the corner of your eye, you watch Rowan give Ben’s arm a reassuring squeeze and a warm smile.

There have been times you have wondered if there was something up between those two.

“We better hurry, or we’ll miss Bill. He said he’d be waiting for his siblings close to the exit of Platform 9¾,” Rowan said excitedly as they made their way through the door, trunk behind them.

Or not.

“How do they know that?” Ben questions you, perhaps sourly, beside you.

“Rowan writes to Bill all the time, they claim to be pen pals. Bill’s apprenticeship in Gringotts is really interesting, apparently,” you shrug before following behind Rowan towards the train’s main corridor.

You make it to the exit among the sea of Hogwarts students and rapidly find a very familiar mane of long ginger hair. You only knew of one family with such peculiar shade of red. 

“Bill!” you shout to the top of your lungs. Last you had seen him had been at the start of your seventh year when he came to drop Charlie and Percy to the platform. To be honest, you also corresponded with Bill but you had wanted to mortify Ben a little.

“Hey!” he waves as you run in his direction. Rowan had a blinding smile beside him.

He wraps you in a bear crushing hug. Bill had always been affectionate with you. You were also very happy to see him. Like the rest of your friends, you are not very sure when you would see them again.

“Rocking long hair now? Sick!” he had his hair on a short ponytail now. It suited him, you decided. Adulthood suited Bill well, his shoulders looked broader than the last time you had seen him. He could not look more handsome.

“Thanks!” He lets go of you slowly, his smile is wide and brilliant. “Hey Ben,” he greets behind you. You hear Ben mutter a greeting.

“Tell them Bill,” Rowan quips beside him as she pokes him in the ribs. I subdue the urge to snicker to save Ben discomfort.

“Tell us what?” Ben’s voice is loud, very unlike himself. You bit into the inside of your mouth to suppress your giggles. Ben Bloody Copper does have it in him.

“I’m going to Egypt!” He announces with triumph.

The announcement takes you by surprise. He had not mentioned any of that on his last letter. Ben looks surprised too beside you, unlike Rowan who you suspect already knew of this major development.

“Well, I’m very happy for you Bill!” Egypt has the reputation of being one of the most cursed cities in the world. It has plenty of tombs and catacombs ready to be explored, many of which are cursed. All the hard work Bill had put on his internship in Gringotts is finally paying up with a real curse breaker job.

“Congratulations,” Ben adds and pats Bill on the shoulder. He looks a mixture of happy and relieved. You can only wonder what had come through his mind.

“We will miss you Bill. Don’t forget to write,” there is a single tear on the corner of Rowan’s eye as they embrace him.

“Totally missing you, mate,” you join the hug. Ben joins the group hug soon after.

This isn’t like your parting at Hogwarts when Bill graduated. This is a real farewell. Curse-breaking is a real deal, and in Egypt nonetheless. Bill will certainly have less free time in the future. He might have to work undercover, and study a lot of new information. Nevertheless, you more than anyone could understand Bill.

“You’ll be the most amazing cure-breaker, Bill. I have no doubt,” the hug breaks. You can sense Rowan bite down their tears beside you.

“Just as good as you, mate. Are you sure you don’t want to apply to Gringotts? I could arrange a word or two for you,” he offers kindly with a smile. You are sure Bill means well but you had considered it before and concluded all of you had different paths ahead of you.

“It’s okay Bill, I’ll tell you if I change my mind,” you promise. Although you find that very unlikely. You had never been fond of goblins.

“Anyway, has any of you seen Penny? I have to say goodbye of everyone before I take my brothers home.”

Penny.

You had pushed her on the back of your mind earlier in the ride. She had decided to remain on her Head Girl compartment and you hadn’t seen her since. ‘I have to prepare.’ She had said. You figured she just wanted to say goodbye at everyone at Hogwarts, being so popular had its downfalls.

“She was behind me when we got down from the Hogwarts Express,” Ben said after a brief pause. Rowan and you shrug.

“I’ll go ask Charlie if he has seen her, see you guys,” he waves goodbye before fading away among the running students.

Of course he’ll ask Charlie, he liked Penny a little too much for your own liking.

“Aren’t you going to look for Penny, as well?” Rowan asks you quietly, her eyes were slightly watery but otherwise looked composed. Ben’s hand was on their shoulder reassuringly.

You don’t get to answer when you hear a very familiar and annoying voice shout your name.

“Well, well, well, what do we have here? None other than my least favorite cursed child of Hogwarts!” Except that you were not children anymore and you knew this time that Merula Snyde’s remark was meant more in a sarcastic tone than ill intentions.

You and Merula have come a long way. From sworn enemies, to begrudging partner in crime, to much to your surprise, friends.

“Hey there yourself, Merula.” You smirk at her. That’s just the way your friendship is.

“So you really are leaving with Rapepick after all, aren’t you?” It takes you by surprise that she brings it up. You hadn’t told her, only your knit of friends: Bill, Ben, Rowan and Penny.

Penny.

You couldn’t hold it against her. It is, after all, a very Penny thing to do. First of all, Merula is your friend after all. Second of all, it is not a secret of yours.

“Well you know me, I don’t find trouble, trouble seems to find me. Adventures never seem to end, my dear friend.”

After your curse-breaking odyssey, you had a lot time to think. It isn’t only adventure you are after. There are many stories behind the curses. Ghosts that might not rest in peace, families that wonder what happened to their relatives, other Jacobs getting in real trouble. You just wanted to make a little change in this world of curses. Prevent other people from ending like your brother. Prevent the suffering of other families. It is simple. Curse breaking is something you just happened to be good at.

“Just don’t get yourself killed, okay?” If you hadn’t known Merula for so long you would’ve mistaken her words for worry, “It would be such a waste of time to do all paperwork considering the length of your record.”

She spoke with contempt, but you knew her, deep down Merula Snyde actually cared about you.

“So you really are taking that job in the Ministry, eh?” you nudge her in the ribs with your elbow. She pushes you away lightheartedly with her hands.

“I don’t want to follow my parent’s footsteps, so yes. Who knows, I might rank up and be an Auror one of these days.” She puffs her chest at this proudly. Merula Snyde might not always be kind but you had no doubt a powerful witch to be reckoned.

“Good luck, friend.” You hesitate for a split second but you say it trying not to find yourself embarrassed. Had you told your eleven-year-old self you’d end up considering Merula Snyde one of your dearest friends, they would’ve flipendo’ed your ass away. 

You extend your hand to Merula only to be met with a hug, a very brief, warm and awkward hug. Merula is not the hugging type.

“Take care, friend.” She moves away from you rapidly, eyes darting both ways, wary of prying eyes. Merula Snyde DID NOT hug people.

“You better come back with a list of broken curses under your belt the next time we see each other. Don’t make me think you need my help to do it.” She gives you a light punch in the shoulder.

She smirks at you. You smirk at her.

“Bet on it.”

 

With that Merula Snyde turns her back to you and walks away. There is a tense feeling in your stomach. You had the suspicion you would not see Merula again in a long time. You follow her small frame among the crowd as far as you can until you see her figure disappear into a wall. She does not look back once.

\-----

“Where is everyone?” You jump startled in your place. You could recognize that voice anywhere.

“Oh hey, Penny! There you are!” you exclaim lamely. You look behind you, no one is to be seen. Ben and Rowan who were beside the column just a moment ago had left. Less people were skirmishing now. Most of the younger student were leaving already. The only people left in the vicinity were you, Penny, and a couple of other 7th and 6th year Hufflepuff that were crying and hugging a couple of meters from you. You could recognize Tonks bright pink hair among them.

Penny raises a finely groomed eyebrow at you. She had her trunk with her. Her eyes were bloodshot, you could tell that you had giving her a good look.

“Did Bill find you?” you mumble like an idiot. You don’t know why you are treating her this way when she is the same Penny that’s been with you for all 7 years of Hogwarts but you feel suddenly very nervous.

What could have Bill said that made her cry? Did she like Bill that much? That didn’t sit well with you, but you were such a coward you would never tell her that. When it came to Penny, you were just a bloody coward.

“Oh Bill? Yeah. He is going to Egypt, brilliant.” She smiles at you that dazzling smile that can’t quite reach her eye that usually tricks everyone else. But not you, it never goes past you.

“Penny are you alri—“

“There you are!” It’s Rowan this time, Ben on her heels. 

“I’m right here were you left me Rowan…Ben,” you give them both dirty looks. You were just about to ask Penny about her feelings but with them now you knew it would be virtually impossible for her to let her guard down.

You relax instantly. It is likely the last time in a long time you will be able to bicker with your friends like this. Rowan will go back to her farm. Ben will be a ministry worker. And Penny….And Penny?

“We are sorry, we didn’t want to intrude between you and Merula,” Ben teases you at which you scowl sarcastically.

“Very funny Ben, very funny. Hilarious.”

“We saw you hug, don’t deny it now,” Rowan pokes fun at you and stifles a laugh. Ben makes a kissy noise beside her. You hide your face behind your hands in embarrassment. You do not want Penny of all people to know that.

“Sod off,” you push Ben in order to make him shut up. All four of you share a laugh.

“Who would’ve thought? Our Hero of Hogwarts melted the ice queen’s heart!” Penny remarks with a sunny smile. At least she looked happier now, at your expense.

“You too Penny? Three against one? That’s pretty unfair don’t you think?” you plea for mercy.

“Please, nothing Our Hero of Hogwarts can’t beat.” She smiles at you warmly. She always calls you a hero so sincerely you are never sure whether she is making fun at you or not.

“I guess,” You don’t know what to say. She disarms you so easily with her smile. You kind of hope the hotness of your cheeks is not noticeable. The happiness quickly tumbles to the ground just as fast; however, this thing that you are feeling better pass soon. You don’t know when you’ll be seeing Penny again. Just the thought of it was dreadful on itself.

There is a slight pause as you and Penny exchange glances, as to which Rowan coughs.

“I guess this is it, isn’t it?” Her voice carries a hint of melancholy, forlorn, far away. A knot forms in the back of your throat. This is goodbye.

“We can still owl each other, right?” you are sure Ben had meant to reassure all of you but it came more like a question. And you wonder. You really hope you can owl all of them as often as you will promise you will.

“Always, we’ll keep in touch.” You’ve heard countless of stories of Hogwarts alumni not seeing each other ever again. Deep in your heart, you are scared, but, the bond with your friends is strong. The kind of bond that forms when you go through death defying adventures together. You’ll keep in touch, you are sure.

“Penny, have you already said goodbye to your family?” Rowans asks. Penny only nods. Her eyes looked as normal as ever, she had probably use a charm to fix them when no one was looking, you guess.

But, goodbye? I look at Penny confused. Why did Penny say goodbye at her family? I look at Rowan and Ben to see no reaction in them. Did they know something I didn’t….?

“What? I don’t understand…,” you say dumbly. Rowan raises her eyebrows at Penny’s direction in surprise. Ben face palms beside her with a laugh. You open and close your mouth like a Plimpy out of water.

Penny giggles beside you, “I might have forgotten to tell you something.” There’s a twinkle in her eye that you recognize. The kind of twinkle that meant she had in fact not forgotten to tell me something but decided to avoid sharing a piece of information for her own mirth and enjoyment.

Typical Penny.

“It’s time,” you sense a bony and slender hand on your shoulder. You didn’t expect her so soon.

The one and only, Patricia Rakepick.

“Ms. Rakepick.” You turn to her. She looks as elegant and well-kept as always. For a woman her age, with a couple of grey hairs here and there, she is a very attractive woman.

“Good afternoon, my fellow curse-breakers,” after the incident in Hogwarts she took an inkling to call your group curse breakers.

“I figure no one else took my offer after all, other than this oddball?” by oddball she meant you. You scowl. Did she just say that she had offered your friends the same internship she offered you? Why hadn’t they said anything?

Rowan and Ben shrug at you as if reading your mind.

“I’m sorry Ms. Rakepick, but I’ve done enough curse-breaking to last me a life time,” Rowan says smartly.

“Same,” Ben adds as he raised his hand lightly.

You couldn’t help but feel disappointed. Perhaps that’s why they didn’t tell you anything. Perhaps, they knew, rightly so, that you would insist. That you would try to convince them of forming a curse-breaking team and they might’ve accepted against their own wishes. You understand but you feel disappointed nonetheless.

“I’m coming with.” It is Penny’s voice this time, resolute. So, this is why Penny was crying… she had just said goodbye to her family. You sense guilt form in the bottom of your stomach.

“Excellent decision, Ms. Haywood.” Patricia Rakepick nods her way and they exchange glances. Something inside you clicks.

“Excuse me a moment, Patricia.” You forgo manners altogether. Back when you had started to correspond and help each other break the cursed vaults she had suggested you call her by her first name. You grab Penny by the arm and drag her kindly to the side.

“Penny, you don’t have to this if you don’t want to,” you whisper. Rowan and Ben are giving you interested glances from a couple of meters away but you ignore them.

Ben and Rowan were not like Penny. Penny is the kind of person to put others before her and really well at hiding her own desires. What if she was only accepting Patricia’s proposal because she thought you’d want her to? You would not be able to live with that.

“Are you mental? You know my answer better than anyone whenever someone invites me to join them on death-defying adventures.”

She smiles at you and you smile back. If someone shares your thrill for adventure, it is Penny. She had said something very similar the first time you invited her to vault hunting.

“Okay,” you grab her hand in the spur of the moment, you don’t know why but by the moment you do it’s kind of too late to go back so you don’t. You walk back to Patricia Rakepick with a determined look on your face.

“We are ready,” you say with resolve. You want to feel braver than you actually feel. Penny squeezes your hand and does not let go. You can’t look her in the eye. Your heart is running one thousand km per hour, but it makes you feel better. It sounds very corny but with Penny, it felt like all kinds of things were possible. You wouldn’t even be alive if it wasn’t for her.

“Perfect. Although you owe your friends a proper goodbye.”

You look behind you. Rowan and Ben are smirking at you, and you have a vague idea why that is. You let go of Penny’s hand then, trying to act as nonchalant as you could.

“I’m gonna miss you,” you hug both of them. You let go of Ben first. You exchange glances. He understands Rowan Khanna is your best friend in the world.

“Take care well of yourself, Rowan.” Your grip on them is tighter. You really don’t know when you’ll see each other again. You owed them so much of your happiness and life at Hogwarts. If Hogwarts a History had a glossary with the definition of friend, Rowan Khanna would have their photo there.

“You’ll be the best curse-breaker. You are the most skilled person I’ve met. Just don’t get yourself killed, okay?” they hug you back just as tight. You really do feel like crying. This person was not only your friend. They are family to you.

“You’re just as amazing Rowan, don’t give up on your dreams. You’ll be an amazing professor one day.”

“You don’t give up on Penny.”

You let go. Rowan is smiling at you; tears were now rolling down their face freely. This is the real goodbye, you think. You really hope they follow their heart. You exchange glances with Ben again, he should take care of them. It’s your silent agreement.

You turn to Patricia Rakepick, Penny is already waiting by her side.

“Are you ready?”

You exchange glances with your new partner in crime, “We were born ready.” 

Penny giggles. She had taught you that cheesy line. 

Patricia takes out her wand, “Portus.” She had been carrying a black notebook with her, which quickly grew blue in her hand.

“Let’s.”

Both you and Penny exchange glances before touching the notebook.

Here we go.

An abrupt and powerful nauseous feeling went through your navel enough to make you feel light headed.

Ugh, you hated portkeys.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The journey to become a master curse breaker is not an easy one.

Part II

The landing is less than harmonic for you. You’ve never been a good lander when it comes to portkeys so you aren’t surprised when the moment you set foot on the ground you ricochet to the ground; only to have the air taken out of your lungs by another human body.

“I’m so sorry!”

Her face is so close to yours you feel suffocated. You are not sure whether it has to do with the fact that she has never been so close to your face before or the fact that she just landed on your stomach.

“It’s” you heave for air, “okay,” you cringe. You could feel her body pressed to yours. Maybe it is not such a bad way to die.

“You are out of air, oh merlin, I’m so sorry,” she stands up in a flash. You take a deep breath and feel relief, but a regretful one. The kind you feel when you finish dessert a minute too quickly. Who in their right would mind Penny Haywood’s body pressed against theirs? You groan. These are the thoughts of a lewd old wizard, so embarrassing.

“Here,” she offers you her hand. She isn’t looking your way, so you can’t decipher here face. You suppose she feels self-conscious as well, so you decide not to embarrass her further.

“I’ve never travelled by portkey before.” She quietly admits to you while she looks at her shoes. Her cheeks are flushing and you feel your breath leaving your body once gain.

“I’m not a very good lander either, sorry ‘bout that,” your laugh is loud and you pat her shoulder because you feel restless and awkward and don’t know what else to do. Your family isn’t a particularly warm one, you never know what to do in these kind of situations unlike her.

A few feet away Patricia’s Rakepick is waiting for you. You look around your surrounding for the first time since you arrived. To put it bluntly, it looked as if you were in the middle of nowhere.

“Where are we?” Penny questions first.

Rakepick smiles, her eyes glaze over.

“My hometown,” she answers, “follow me, please.”

Her dark cloak flutters under the wind of summer. You feel the dampness of the air cling to your skin and your robes, and for the millionth time wish Hogwarts’ robes weren’t so dense.

You follow quietly behind Rakepick down a dirt-paved road a couple of meters from your landing spot. It doesn’t take more than a couple of minutes before the miniature structures of a town showed over the horizon, under the soft glowing light of the setting sun.

You realize you are on the outskirts of a village. Most buildings looked old and tattered, with low ceilings, dark roofs, quiet streets, and very bad lighting. The smell of salt fills your nostrils. You could not see a body of water near, but you were in the coast, there is no question about it.

Finally, Rakepick stops in front of a coffee shop, or at least what is supposed to be a coffee shop, you can only deduct it by the old sign outside right over the door. A single bell resonates over the quietness of the streets.

The inside of the shop looks very unlike a shop and a lot more like your grandmother’s drawing room. There are a couple of mismatched cushion chairs and around three or four tables. An old man with a very long unkempt beard and dirty nails stood behind an old wooden counter. You see nothing resembling a coffee maker near and it strikes you as odd.

“Paty, s’ nice to see ye, had a nice trip?” his voice is deep but pleasant, his accent familiar. It doesn’t surprise you, people from Hogwarts come from all over Britain. At least you are still in Britain, you think.

“Hello, Dylan, I’ll just go if you don’t mind.”

The man smiles at her through his beard and does a reverence for her, “Of course, I see ye have people with ye,”

Rakepick doesn’t look back as she walks past the counter into a tight hallway, “Just students, Dylan, just students.” She waves at the man. I see Penny give Dylan an apologetic smile.

“I’m Penny—“

You grab the hem of Penny’s robes and interrupt her. Of course polite Penny Haywood wants to be polite, but you are about to be left behind. ‘let’s go’, you mouth to her and wave Dylan goodbye yourself. You will have to introduce each other some other time.

“Don’t forget to knock!” he yells at you, but you don’t understand.

By the end of the hallway you find a door with the words ‘out of order’ hung over the rusty doorknob. Patricia Rakepick is nowhere to be seen. First, she calls you ‘just students’, and now she disappears in the middle of nowhere. It bothers you more than it baffles you. Always so full of secrets that Rakepick.

“Maybe we should knock, you know?” Penny suggest beside you. You look at her and she shrugs. A moment later, she knocks.

A moment too long and too quiet for your liking passes and nothing happens. You are about to pull from your hair. Did Patricia Rakepick just leave like that? Wait—the door said out of order.

It seems Penny thinks the same as you. She opens the door. Inside, the bathroom is cramped. There is a disabled shower full of brooms and mops. The space between the toilet and sink barely enough for two people. You feel cheated.

Then you feel a strong shove push you into the bathroom.

“What the heck.”

Once again, Penny is in very close proximity to you.

“Don’t be a baby now,” she closes the door behind you.

There is a moment in silence as you look at each other. She doesn’t have a reason to lock you inside the bathroom. What kind of logic is that? You want to open your mouth to ask her why, but you are so close you are starting to sweat. The robes, fucking robes.

The door opens suddenly from the outside and it startles you. It startles you so much you almost fall butt-first into the toilet.

“What has taken you so long? Didn’t Dylan explain?” It’s Patricia Rakepick smirking at you, you figure she finds your situation hysterical.

Behind Rakepick, you see another village, a wizard village you assume. It is not much different from Hogsmade, except perhaps more rural. You lick your lips and taste salt again, except you can’t recognize between the dampness of the weather or the taste of your own sweat. 

“There’s a piece of toilet paper glued to your feet, by the way,” Penny whispers beside you as you exit the bathroom behind her. You look down at your own boot and confirm it.

Great, you think. Penny and Rakepick share knowing glances before bursting out laughing.

Hysterical.

\------

Patricia Rakepick takes you to a small cottage by the outskirts of the small town. Pendine Grove, you learn, is very small magical town on the coasts of Wales, and the hometown of one of Britain’s most famous curse breakers. Other than a tavern, a tea shop, and the old grubby looking bookstore that you saw on the main street, you do not see much to it. Except perhaps, for the beach. Or so Rakepick says.

“I used to spend most of my time on that beach,” she mentions offhandedly on your way to her house.

The house is empty and dusty. The walls are barren except for a single portrait of a very young Hogwarts graduated Rakepick and what you can only assume are her parents smiling and waving at you. They seem happy. You decide not to ask. Voldemort and his followers were on the high then. You fear asking uncomfortable questions.

“Home Sweet Home,” her voice is dry. For a split second, you wonder if that is something you are supposed to hear.

“This place is small but it’s equipped enough to help us prepare. I only have two rooms so you’ll have to share, if you don’t mind.” 

Your heart races. Just a couple of hours ago you were a Hogwarts student and now, you are a night away from preparing for a new set of adventures.

Also. You are sharing a room with Penny. You can feel the palm of your hands sweat.

“I’ll move your trunks to your room, now, if you excuse me, we’ll talk tomorrow.”

Her voice is strained, tired and final as she disappears on her way through the staircase.

Penny nudges your ribs, “For the sake of Merlin, I really hope you don’t snore.”

\----

It is incredibly easy to fall into a routine with Penny. She wasn’t your roommate in Hogwarts, so you had no idea what to expect. Dropping the habit of casting a deafening spell altogether before bed is an instant improvement. The first time you do it, out of routine more than anything, you had a sheepish Penny apologize a morning after. Nobody had ever told her that she snored. You laughed it off and explained it was a habit grown out of having to drown out Rowan’s loud snoring. It is almost as bad as a mandragora’s cry, you confess.

Living with Penny is also accompanied by other perks. Both of you are still on Hogwarts schedule and find yourselves awake and on the go early in the morning, although Penny is much more of a morning person than you are. Rakepick, much to your surprise is an incredibly heavy sleeper and usually wakes way after mid-morning or early afternoon to a cup of very dark and sour coffee.

Despite being your childhood friend, as the days pass the more you realize you know very little about the one and only Penny Haywood. She isn’t only a talented potion master but a competent cook. In her home, there are very few magical artifacts; she lived in a muggle neighborhood for most her life. Her father taught her to cook, her mother knew very little about things that did not involve plants. She is, also, a very decent tea brewer. You are embarrassed to confess you are no good. Your family owns a house elf and you know very little about the way food cooks. For the longest of times, you just figured food appeared out of thin air, like magic. You tell Penny this after a particularly sumptuous meal.

“Are you for real?”

“It’s true, I’m telling you,” you put your hands up in defense, “I was just a kid, okay? I wasn’t allowed in the kitchen and whenever it was dinner time food was just there! You can’t blame me!”

Penny snorts at you. Her nose wrinkles just by enough to make the gesture cute.

The sound of a picking noise distracts you from your meal and talk. It is a majestic black capped screech owl. You instantly recognize it as Rakepick’s. British wizards do not have owls like those. You open the window and watch it land on the counter gracefully. You retrieve the parchment from its leg, you see Penny give it a tentative pat.

“What does it say?”

You scrunch up your eyebrows in concentration and incredulity. Apparently, Rakepick had decided to leave and do some reconnaissance for your future expedition and decided to leave on her own for a couple of days. Not without the precaution of giving you a list of study materials and tasks for you to prepare.

“I didn’t even hear her leave,” you huff in disbelief as you hand Penny the short letter and her list of supplies.

“Oh Merlin, this is so exciting!” she gushes between bites of her pancakes. Rakepick’s owl nibbles on a piece of pancake on the counter as well. It makes you smile. Of course, she would say that. This is Penny Haywood for you. It makes you smile, you can’t help it. You just like her a bit too much.

Suddenly, Rakepick leaving you doesn’t sound like such a bad idea.

\-----

Except it is. At least you think so. Having a list of potions instructions and books like ‘Healing Herbs: A beginner’s guide to identifying, foraging and using medical plants and ‘More than 100 potions for the adventurous and edgy’ in the library at her disposal makes Penny go into a frenzy.

Rakepick’s idea of preparation involved splitting you into activities. She said you only had a couple of weeks before you are to travel together to your expedition. She sends Penny a couple of books and a list of potions she expects her to brew for our trip. You get a couple of books on protective charms and promises of express lessons on defensive magic against dark spells the moment she gets home. Which meant Penny busied herself for more than 12 hours a day and for a very bored and lazy curse breaker. At Hogwarts, you usually had Rowan on your toes nagging you to study or used to run errands for your teachers in exchange of tutoring, but Rakepick expects you to study and level your spells up on your own. It irks you more than you are willing to admit. When you accepted the internship, you expected a lot more of action and lot less of book reading.

Your routine changes. Rakepick had a small shack outside her cottage, which Penny called garage, that worked as a makeshift potion dungeon for her. It has cabinet upon cabinet of ingredients, including ingredients you have never heard of before. Penny mentions it could probably rival Snape’s collection. Despite being a competent potion maker, you can’t find it in you to be as excited as your friend. And so, you end up studying on your own. In your room, the cozy living room, or the kitchen. You try to study within her vicinity at first. You sit on a stool the farthest from the fuming cauldron and rummage through page after page as you watch her work. 

Penny wears muggle clothing. You have a vague memory of listening to a fashion discussion about muggle clothing with André and them calling wizard clothing as “limited” and “antiqued”. You don’t know much about fashion yourself, your mother used to buy all of your clothes right till your 13th birthday, but high waisted jeans fit Penny really well.

“I can’t concentrate when you are looking at me,” she says one evening suddenly. Her face is brimming with a thin layer of sweat. She has been working over the cauldron for more than an hour.

I was looking at your butt, not at you, mind you Penny. Except you don’t say it aloud.

“I’m not looking at you,” you lie through your teeth as you turn a page from your book absentmindedly.

She huffs, “must be my imagination then.” You can’t tell if she is being sarcastic or not so you don’t humor her. Her flushed face is driving you a little bit nervous. Your stomach does a particularly painful flip-flop.

A single drop of sweat travels down her face and chin only to land over her concoction. There is a soft bang as a green fume overpowers the small chamber. You hear Penny swear under her breath before you hear her cast the odorless charm. Green tint now covers her face.

“I should probably leave,”

“Yeah,” she refuses to look at you while she smudges the side of her face from the green tint unsuccessfully.

You take your book under your arm and run away like a coward. Your heart is thumping behind your ribcage as if you had just won a particular hard match against Slytherin. You wait for the sun to set before taking your broom for a long night run.

Your heart is restless. It bothers you. Too bad, there is no snitch to catch, no quaffle to throw, nor bludger to hit in the middle of the forest.

\------

There is no intelligent reasoning behind it but you start avoiding Penny after that. It takes you days to acknowledge it but something has brewed in your heart in the days you had spent around Penny. It is driving you crazy, so the only thing you can do to keep yourself sane enough to study charms and curses is to avoid her.

At first, it’s barely perceptible. You still have the three meals together and chit chat every morning but you feel hyperaware. Aware of the number of freckles on her nose—seven—of the streaks of grey in her blue eyes, of the way her eyebrows knit in perfect concentration when she is going over a particular hard passage in her textbook. Aware of the restlessness of your heart, its drilling sound on your ears every time you hear her voice—oh so close to you or the hotness of her skin when she accidentally brushes it against yours when she makes a move for the sugar bowl earlier in the morning.

Next, you avoid the garage like a plague. You start skipping meals. You use just about any excuse to miss at least one of your shared mealtime. ‘I can’t put the book down, there are so many spells I don’t know,’ or ‘I think I just jinxed the bathroom sink, I have to repair it,’ or the lamest to date, ‘sorry, Penny, but I really really hate brocolli’, when you didn’t.

It embarrasses you, but after so many years of fooling Hogwart’s faculty members and prefects, you figured you could trick your friend just as easily.

“I’m sorry for being rude the other day,” she intercepts you on your way from the forest one evening. She is wearing those damn muggle jeans while your Quidditch uniform clung to your sticky body.

“Don’t worry Penny,” you give her a nervous smile that can’t quite reach your eyes.

The grip on your broom is so strong you fear it might break under the pressure. An unfounded claim, really. You had casted an unbreakable charm two years ago when you had received it for your birthday from your parents.

“I do worry,” she grabs the hem of your robe gently, you are not sure whether it is her intention or if she thinks better than to touch you, “you are acting strange.”

You snort at her, loudly. The noise is foreign even to you but you keep your charade a float, “Penny, dear, the fumes are getting to you.”

She gives you an unreadable expression. You mean it as a joke, but the words come out more like a statement and you instantly regret it. You are not always a polite person, you know that, but your brashness is usually reserved for the likes of people like Merula or Snape. You sigh ready to admit defeat and rub your face with one hand awkwardly.

“Penny, it was a joke—I didn’t mean it.” You croak.

“Of course,” she smiles at you. The smile is so wide, bright and excessively cheerful, you just can’t buy it. “I understand.” She adds after a pause.

You don’t look at each other on your way home as you walk in silence. You try to apologize again before going to bed only to have Penny brush you off.

“We are both tired, let’s sleep it off.”

You don’t sleep that night. It feels as if you just lost an undesired battle. You have never been much of a thinker but a doer. And all of the thinking you have been doing lately just makes you feel anxious. The last time you remember feeling this way it involved your brother and cursed vaults not…a girl. And, it isn’t any girl, but one of your best friends, the one and only, potion master extraordinaire, Penny Haywood.

You want to rationalize it. Deep down, you sense you have always felt that way about her. Rowan and Ben teased you all the time. You couldn’t help it. Penny just happened to be an extremely attractive person. Yet, that is all you figured it was. Attraction. However, ever since you started sharing all of your time with her, you are suddenly not sure anymore. You like her voice a little too much, her laugh is a bit too bright and you enjoy her company more than you enjoy anyone else’s. What do these feelings mean? You don’t want to have an answer to that, but you kind of owe it to yourself to accept you know it. And, it kind of starts to make sense, why it never really worked with anyone else. You had rationalized it was the cursed vault hunting, but as you’ve come to realize that was probably just an excuse you used for yourself. Have you always been this dense? Emotionally deaf.

What now?

You doze off early in the morning to that question on the back of your head.

\-----

You wake up to the sound of a loud knocking on your door. You open your eyes blearily to notice Penny is absent from her bed. Unlike you, she has a habit of making her bed after waking up. The curtains are drawn over the sun. You can see it peeking under its blinds. Penny is the most considerate person you know.

The loud knocking resumes over your door, which urges you to your feet. You find Madam Rakepick’s stern face behind it.

“We are going to train now, get dressed.” You look at your feet. You notice how scarcely dressed you are for the first time since waking up. At least, your holyhead harpies t-shirt is a couple of sizes too big for you.

“Now,” she commands in a quiet tone before giving her back to you, robes flying in her wake. You groan. You probably skipped breakfast with all of your sleeping. A part of you feels relieved; you don’t know how to act around Penny yet. Yesterday had been so awkward and you feel you still owe her a proper apology.

After a short cold shower, you make your way down the stairs only to find a small note over the counter of the kitchen.

‘Just accio your breakfast, I didn’t want to wake you up.

-Penny’

Nope, you did not deserve someone like Penny in your life. The smile that settles on your face is the softest and most genuine you have had in days.

\------

The moment you meet Madam Rakepick on the backyard the first thing she does is try to jinx your ass away.

“Flipendo!” she chants, the action is so fast you barely manage to counter it with a spell of your own. The response is barely significant as you still feel your chest pushed back.

Rakepick is pointing her wand your way in a fighting stance, “My pupil, we will meet dark wizards and fellow curse-breakers on our wake, if you want to reach the pinnacle of all kinds of secrets you must be able to at least put up a good fight.”

Your pulse quickens as you set into your fighting stance automatically. You were not the leader of the underground dueling club for nothing.

You are halfway from opening your mouth when you feel another force knock you to the floor again. No incantation? Is this wandless magic? You are speechless. Rakepick hovers over you shadowing your eyes from the bright sun.

“You are too slow,” she chastises, “Incarcerous.”

You want to answer that wandless magic is an unfair advantage, but a set of ropes suddenly appear over your mouth and the rest of your body binding your place to the ground. You make a gagging noise.

“What have you been doing in my absence? If you manage to get free, I might consider a second lesson. Good luck. I can’t take you with me if you are such a sad arse. You are no longer a kid.”

You can only see her grim smeared boots from your spot and feel the dust travel into your nostrils as she draws away from you. The dirt makes your eyes burn and the taste of the rope quickly overpowers your mouth. Rakepick is right. You’ve done nothing but be distracted. You hauled your ass all the way here for one reason, to become a master curse breaker. A silently painful tear exits your eye. You feel it travel down your cheek, across your nose and depart your face into the ground.

You have read of wandless magic before, you just have never seen it. A skill only mastered by the most talented and disciplined of wizards. You don’t know where to start. You had dropped your wand carelessly the moment Rakepick’s wandless jinx hit your chest, unreachable from your tied body. 

“Ffeh Iahahem.” You gag through the ropes hopelessly.

Finite Incantatem. You think hard. Finite Incantatem. Harder. Minutes turns to hours. You are only able to realize it is way past diner when you sense the sun start to set over you. Your skin complains. It felt no different from that one time you went to a Spanish beach with your parents when you were seven and sunburned your skin from head to toe.

Anxiety starts to build in your stomach. If you don’t get out of this ropes soon you’ll end up dozing off outside in the middle of the forest. That and surface of your skin is starting to turn raw. 

Patricia Rakepick is merciless.

Finite Incantatem.

Finite Incantatem.

Finite Incantatem.

FiniteIncantatemFiniteIncantatemFiniteIncantatemFiniteIncantatem

Suddenly the ropes loosen around you and you sigh in relief. You don’t stand up instantly, you roll on your back and heave a deep breath. In and out. The stars are starting to appear over the dark sky and there is salt on the rim of your lips. The relief is so powerful you feel like crying all over again.

“My goodness, are you alright?”

You sit up instantly. It is Penny. She is now kneeling beside you, her wand in the open. The ropes that were binding you just minutes before vanish before your eyes. You figure you were on her way back from the potion shed.

Worry etches her face. Of course it is Penny. There is no way you would suddenly produce wandless magic out of thin air. You start to hyperventilate. The feeling of inadequacy is powerful.

“Did that hag do this to you?” You can’t look her in the eye. You recognize that tone, however. It’s the tone she uses when witnessing unfairness. Penny Haywood is Hufflepuff for a reason.

You don’t answer her. You can’t face her. You feel disappointed, puny—a sad arse. A failure. You only stare at the ground conclusively defeated.

“I’ll give her a piece of my wand,” she spats and you feel her move beside you.

“Penny, please,” You stand up. She stops on her tracks. You are begging her. It is now a matter of pride, and your tarnished heart wouldn’t be able to take another blow. You know she has good intentions but nothing she could do would undo your wounded ego.

“But—

She tries to argue with you but you interrupt her. The tip of your fingers press gently over her lips. “No.” Your voice is soft as you look into her eyes for the first time in days.

A knot forms in your throat as you feel her break through your defenses effortlessly. Of course, you are a coward and draw your hand back awkwardly breaking the intimate moment. You wonder if this is how a galloping unicorn feels. Your heart feels about to burst.

Conflicting emotions overwhelm you. You turn your back to her without a word and pick your wand from the ground. You can only do one thing now to soothe your emotions.

“Accio broom,”

If Penny shouts after you, you don’t hear her. The salty wind is finally hitting your face. It is painful but refreshing against your sunburned skin. It washes over you until your heart comes into a lull.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It will probably start to diverge from canon from here on. I will try to make it the less-divergent possible but HPHM’s story is not over yet so who knows if it’ll end up completely AU at some point. Thanks for reading. I'm very interested on your opinions! *Hint hint*


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The unraveling of the unknown is only a reward for the worthy.

Part III

A part of you feels guilty for leaving Penny so suddenly but in your heart, you had no other choice. When it comes to emotions, you can’t function properly, especially when they are overwhelming. It has been a long time since you felt so helpless and overpowered. You had conquered the cursed vaults, you had rescued your brother. Somehow, you figured in your head that you were ready for the next big thing. Oh boy, how wrong you were!

And Penny, you just don’t know what to do about her.

You don’t know for how long or how far away you really travel with your broom but you make it back, eventually. It takes you longer than expected, Rakepick’s house had a low ceiling that lost itself in the darkness of the night. The only light present comes from the full moon high over the sky. You open the door as quietly as you can. You ponder skipping your room altogether in fear of waking Penny up. You skirt past the living room when you jump startled. You clutch your broom close to your chest. It’s Penny Haywood’s sleeping figure. Her tired frame is slumped over one of the bridgewater armchairs. Her head rests against the chair’s comfy backrest, locks of blonde hair hiding half of her face. One of her hands rests over her flat stomach while the other dangled over the arm of the chair. She has been waiting for you, is your best guess. This girl is unbelievable, you think.

If you were to sleep in your room now it would take her some time to notice, you reason with yourself before propping your body onto the nearest sofa. Your limbs feel sorer than the hardest Quidditch practice you have ever endured. Remaining tied for an indefinite amount of hours does that to you. You stare at your friend from the corner of your eye as you feel the fatigue slowly consume you. The sleeping image of Penny Haywood is the last thing you see before dozing off into an undeserving sleep.

* * *

The piercing sensation of something hard pinching your cheek wakes you like a thunder. You find Patricia Rakepick’s owl staring at you with a hoot. Stupid Muck. You are usually very tolerant of animals, your parents owned a German Pointer and you had a family owl named Knob. But Muck, Rakepick’s owl, you always sensed enjoys to mock you.

“So, you are finally awake,” of all the voices, you want to hear, Rakepick’s is dead last. She is sitting on the armchair Penny had been sleeping just a night before, sipping from a big cup of smoking coffee. You could use a cup of coffee yourself, you think.

“And dirty.”

You don’t have to look at yourself to confirm her words. You had one hell of a trip the night before, roaming along the tall trees of the forest; you even got to glimpse the shore of the beach. You rub the back of your neck nervously. The kind of nervous leverage only Rakepick could have over you.

“I was almost sure I would find you still tied on my backyard to be honest,” her words carry a hint amusement; you really wish you could wipe out the smirk of her face with a spell. Whether she knows the details behind your escape, she does not tell. Her eyes sparkle with laughter and it is enough to put you in a foul mood.

“I’m a woman of word. I’ll be expecting you in the backyard after midday. Also,” she scrunches up her nose in distaste, “please shower.”

You grab the hem of your robes to bring them the closest to your nose as possible. You take a sniff and grimace. Maybe, she had a point.

* * *

You feel a painful sting impact through your face and volt up through all your body.

“I did not teach you  _Protego_  so you would forgo to use it in battle!”

You are now finding getting a shower just to get pummeled into the ground on multiples occasions quite pointless. Granted, the feeling of refreshing water coursing through your sore body did wonders. Wonders you are about to forget as you try your best to get to your feet after hitting the ground like the sac of potatoes you feel.

* * *

“Is this all you got, curse breaker? You are making me laugh!” Except, Patricia Rakepick does not laugh but slander you yet again with another spell you’ve never heard before that made your feet feel like lead. It was so fast you couldn’t even think of counterattacking.

Your surroundings are going in circles, and from your position knelt don the ground you do not only see one Rakepick but five.

You raise your hand and shout a desperate, “Expelliarmus!” The Rakepick you decide to aim to doesn’t even flinch.  _Shit._

There is a surge of vomit on the back of your throat. You fight it off as you feel the not so gentle pressure of the tip of a wand on your temple.

“If this were a real fight, you’d be done. You are aware of that, right?” Since you Hogwarts days, you have always held complex feelings for that woman. She is rude and brisk, but merciless, and that is something you can admire if only you did not find yourself on the end of her wand.

“I’m not done,” you spit into the ground, the taste of steel and vomit revolt your stomach. You are trying your best not to puke your insides right there and then. There is blood in your mouth yet you can’t quite locate where it is coming from.

“Such a potty mouth you have,” her wands travels through your cheek up to your chin before you feel it direct your head in her direction. You stare into her eyes unyielding. You are not going to give her the satisfaction of watching you accept defeat again.

“Listen to me,” her stare is unshakable, “I did not invite you here to play. You are a talented sorcerer; there is no doubt about that. But, talent, can only take you so far. This is the path you have chosen, from here on, you will only find dark and powerful wizards and witches, and fellow curse breakers, who will not hesitate harm you or your loved ones if you stand in their way. The unraveling of the unknown is only a reward for the worthy.”

Her wand leaves your face, “don’t forget that.”

* * *

At the lack of hospital wing you huddle on the closest similar chamber in the cottage, your bed. You haven't looked at yourself in the mirror, a part of you dreads it, other than the metal taste of your mouth and the soreness of your busted lip, you have no idea just how bad you look. You think about using  _Episkey_  on yourself but you are trying to channel your pain into motivation. You feel something stir in you. Fighting Rakepick, for real, felt unlike your other encounters. It made your blood pump, your heart race, it is scary but exciting. Like flying a broom but with a new lot of unexpected variables. Like flying a broom, while you read, and balanced over the broom on your hands. You knew there was another reason other than finding Jacob motivating you before; you just had not acknowledged it. The thrill. The thrill made the pain bearable.

“For Merlin's beard!”

You barely move from your collapsed spot in your bed.

“Your lip! Your eye! What happened to you?” Penny Haywood runs to you and accommodates on the side of your bed. Worry etches her eyes, her groomed eyebrows knit together. You hate being the cause behind her worrywart tendencies.

You raise a hand to your eye reflexively, in the rush of adrenaline, you have failed to notice anything wrong with it.

“I was run over by a Knight Bus named Rakepick,” you try to humor her. Your left eye socket felt particularly sensitive. You wonder if you look particularly ugly with a black eye. No one had had the privilege of that before.

Damn Rakepick.

“That hag, I’ve never been fond of her.” The fact that Penny continues to refer to Rakepick as hag makes you laugh weakly, the left side of your ribcage complains so you control yourself as best as you can.

The adrenaline is starting to set down and the pit of your stomach is complaining again. If anything, you are now suddenly afraid of being on the end of a Skelo-Gro potion. It makes you furrow your nose in disgust.

“We were just training, no biggie. Hold your hippogriffs. Pen.” You smirk at her. She is too close to you again, the bed is barely accountable for a person. The outside of one of her thigh presses if only slightly to the side of your ribcage.

“It looks painful.”

You want to answer that it feels painful too and be a smartass but think better of it. You´ve been too much of an ass to her lately. You try to sit, show her you okay and ease her worry, but only manage to rest on your elbows before heaving in pain.

“May I?” she whispers.

Your heart skips a beat. It’s been so long since someone has spoken to you in such a caring way. Her thumb caresses the side of your cheek and you close your eyes. Your left eyelid closes heavily over your eye. Your heartbeat quickens, you don’t know what is happening. For the life of you, you quietly hope Penny doesn’t notice. You feel her thumb glaze over your busted lip and you are almost certain she hears the weird noise you make on the back of your throat.

“ _Episkey._ ”

You feel a hot and cold sensation burn your face suddenly which makes you draw away from her. You open your eyes a moment later with a sensation of a recently washed face stemming from your skin. The heaviness of your eye and lip-soreness is magically absent.

“Thanks Penny,” you can’t look her in the eye. You now feel your cheeks burning hotly and you don’t want her to see that. What she just did has stricken you as intimate. You can’t ever remember when was the last time your mother held your face like that. For a brief second, you thought she was about to do something else. You put a strand of hair behind your ear in a nervous habit and lay on your back again. You don’t know what else to say.

You feel a weight from your bed suddenly lift.

“I’m—I’m so sorry, I thought—I thought you’d want that fixed.” She sounds aghast but you can’t face her and are not sure you have the right words to comfort her.

“It’s okay. Don’t fret.”

It’s almost as if you are saying these words to yourself rather than her as you stare at the white ceiling. Your heartbeat is so loud in your ears it could easily pass as a drum-set from The Blibbering Humdingers.

“I think I left something brewing in the cauldron, catch you later!”

You sigh into your pillow. Your rib still aches but you try to ignore it. You are almost certain your internal rock concert is far from finished.

\----

You don’t see much of Penny for the next couple of days. You sense she is the one avoiding you now, but there is not much time for you to overthink it. In refreshing turning of events, Rakepick had decided to immerse you in a vicious training program. Finally! You wish you had time to talk it over with Penny but she is up before you even have time to open your eyes, and asleep by the time you reach your room late into the night. Rakepick’s working schedule, you find, suits quite well.  From midday, just after Rakepick usual waking hours, to dusk, you found yourself at the mercy of her wand.

“There is not much I can teach you in a couple of days,” she is shaking her wand with her hand, always a habit of hers, “if anything, my main objective in the next couple of days is to make sure you have gathered enough abilities not to die.”

She raises her eyebrows at you. You are nonplussed. If you are talented at anything it is at not dying.

“Don’t dare open your mouth, I’m far from done,” she warns and motions her wand at you.

“To a master curse breaker. The wand is not only a magical tool but an extension of our body. If you can't think of your wand as that you will never be fast enough to counter every attack that comes your way.”

“Confringo!”

You feel the spell miss you by an inch. Damn, Rakepick! You had jumped out of the way the right second. That could’ve killed you or left you indefinitely disabled.You feel proud of yourself. It is the first time in this week that Rakepick’s first spell doesn't hit you square in the face.

You round her now, wand in alert.

“The best kind of defense is to attack!”

“Expelliarmus!”

Of course, you don't hit her. So much for you to attack with a disarming spell.You don’t see her mouth move as she jumps. Patricia Rakepick is out of your league. Before anything exits your mouth, she is a step ahead.

“Expelliarmus!”

You try again as you round her. She is not going to try wonky shit on you again.

“Materies,” The spell never arrives as you see a piece of timber materialize and propelled out of your immediate sight.

Expelliarmus!”

She counters the last as she closes the gap between you two.  

“I told you to practice non-verbal magic,” she smirks at you. You are now both circling each other. No more than five feet of distance between you. Any spell fired from this distance could cause proper damage.

“In a wizardly duel, distance is key to overpowering. If you know how to use distance to your advantage, you will gain the advantage.”

A puff of purple smoke blinds you suddenly. You thought you had been surveying Rakepick closely, but you failed to notice the moment she activated the smoke trap. Or was it a charm? You have no idea no idea as you find the intense odor of powder off-putting. Your pulse quickens. Your first instinct is to panic. Run. So that's what you do. You cough and cover your nose with arm as you feel the corner of your eyes water. The smoke is not going anywhere.  

“Gotcha.”

You slump your shoulders when you feel Rakepick’s wand pressing your back, right behind where you know your heart is supposed to be.

It is disheartening to find all of your duels end so fast. It pains you to admit it but the difference in magical prowess and proficiency is vast. Not only does she know more spells than you do. The way she analyzes a fight and her surroundings reach a new level you are not accustomed to.  A level you now want to strive for.

“This not Hogwarts’ dueling club. When it comes to the magical world, very few things are so straightforward. You can't just attack like a troll, you have to think.” She presses the tip of her wand harder into your spine.  

“I could use an unforgivable curse on you now, if I wanted. What will you do?”

Her moist lips are so close to your ear it gives you goosebumps. Beads of sweat roll down your hairline as you try to control your breath.

“You are too damn slow,”

Rakepick sighs into her words before you feel a sudden jerk under your feet and you find every single milliliter of blood in your system bash into your brain. You expected to be blasted you into oblivion again, so finding yourself hanging upside down in the middle of the yard, as you fought with your shirt from obscuring your viewpoint, wasn’t half bad.  

“It’s time for dinner, I’ll come for you when—

She doesn’t get to finish her sentence when you see her body freeze midair from falling headfirst into the ground. She doesn’t hit the ground, unlike you.

You knew you were done so you hadn’t even tried to counter her attack. You had been working on your non-verbal magic every night for the last couple of days, nonetheless. The Stickfast hex, nothing flashy, something you could practice on yourself with no harm. The triumphant smirk covering your face is so wide the sides of your lips are starting to hurt.

“Liberacorpus,”

You see her incorporate herself as you stump into the ground with a loud thud. You had been so ecstatic by your achievement you forgo cushioning your fall altogether. Your wrists ache painfully and your left rib complains again but you can’t brush the broad small from your face.

“You might consider paying Miss Haywood a visit if you need any Skele-GrO, unlike you; is very diligent and bubbly and is driving me mad,”

She does not comment on your achievement. She avoids your eyes and makes her way back into the cottage before you can even stand from the ground. The tiny but elusive she had on her lips, however, you will not forget any time soon.

* * *

The last flickers of sunlight escape among the tall trees of Pendine Grove. The potion shack, as you grew to call it, is fuming in the distance as you walk towards it. You are not sure whether Rakepick’s words are an order or not so, you find yourself on the outside of Penny’s lair. To be fair, you can’t also imagine for the life of you Penny driving anyone crazy either. If anything happens, one could say curiosity killed the niffler.

You knock not once, but three times with no answer. It strikes you as odd so you decide to open the door. What if something had happened to Penny? Madam Rakepick’s words might have made you the littlest bit paranoid.

Nothing you would have imagined could have prepared you to the sight you are witnessing. You stifle a loud laugh in order not to distract your friend from her labor. You don’t know where the music you are now listening to is coming from or whether the music is something you’ve heard before, probably not.

“Won't you take me to….FunkytoOoOown...”  

Nope, never heard of a Funkytown before, but seeing Penny mimic the words from the song excitedly with a potion flask on her hand while a couple of ingredients floated around her sure made you want to visit it. If it makes Penny this lively, it might be worth a shot.

The song ended as you find yourself spying Penny from the corner. The ingredients that had been floating just a moment ago made their way into the cauldron with a wave of her want. You had no idea Penny was proficient at non-verbal magic.

Another song starts on the background. You see the stirring rod moving clock-wise inside the cauldron. Penny turning her back to you. A piano, drums on the background and a humming chorus. Nope, nothing you have heard before. You tiptoe quietly towards her with intention to trick her.  The song picks up in the background and you hear Penny sing barely audible over the music.

“Don't leave me this way. I can't survive, I can't stay alive. Without your love, no baby. Don't leave me this way, I can't exist, I will surely miss your tender kiss, so don't leave me this way.”

You are speechless. You’ve never heard Penny sing before. The song jump-starts suddenly and your plan backfires when you almost trip with a wooden container on the floor.

“Miss Rakepick?” she doesn’t turn instantly when you hear the sound of fervent chopping, “I worked around it, you don’t have to worry about the ingredients, I’m so very sorry for bothering you. I know the ingredient is very scarce, I don’t know what I was thinking earlier this morning. I’ll go collect it myself if necessary —

“Penny,” you cough nervously, “it’s me.” You stand awkwardly a couple of steps behind her. Now that you had ruined your idea to break the ice, you feel suddenly very awkward interrupting her like that.

“Oh no!” To your surprise, her voice sounds even more frantic than before. The music suddenly stops around you, while the wild chopping continued mercilessly.

“Come’n Pen, the music is weird but not bad.” You try to reason with her, “you are lousy dancer though,” you joke because that’s the kind of thing you do when nervous.

“I’m not a lousy dancer!” she snaps her head in your direction. Her face is beet red and much to your surprise framed by circular glasses. You had never seen Penny wear glasses before either. You felt yourself blush too. You want to think it has more to do with the hotness in the air than Penny’s endearing behavior.

You want to tell her you think she has a beautiful voice but it doesn’t come out.

“I didn’t know you wore glasses,” you point at her.

Man, you are missing the music already.

“Oh!” her lips frame a cute little circle in surprise before removing them from her scarlet face. Upon closer inspection, she looked more sunburned than embarrassed.

“They look cute on you, the glasses.”

Blah. Blah. Blah. Talking to Penny nowadays feels like that one time your prefect made you drink the blabbering potion.  

“Mother fixed my eyesight a long time ago, but I still use them sometimes when I get tired.”

She avoids your eye before resuming her task. Whatever she had been chopping found its way to the scale. You hear her sigh and feel like letting out the air you are holding in as well.

“Is Rakepick being a bugger to you too?” you slump beside her. You spread your crossed arms over the table and quietly peek at your friend’s work.

“Not really, if anything I feel like I’ve been a bugger to her. The kind that remains stuck in your nose and refuses to leave no matter how hard pick it, that kind.” She doesn’t smile when she says this but it humors you so you let out a loud laugh.

“It’s not a laughing matter!” she grumbles under her breath before adjusting the hem of her denim shirt. You don’t understand muggle fashion but you are starting to get used to all of Penny’s cute outfits.

“Perk up, come’n,” you bump her shoulder with yours. You are too nervous to try to move your hands.

“I think she hates me,” she turns to you head on for the first time, her crossed arms spread over her working table as well. She can’t quite hide the smile ghosting the side of her mouth. It drives you crazy.

“I don’t think anyone can hate you, Miss Haywood.” The words exit your mouth ever so softly.

She is very close to you again and time stalls for a long quiet second. You see her lips move, hypnotized, yet hear no sound. Her eyelids close slowly over her deep blue eyes.

_Buuuuuurp._

Penny’s neck swerves so fast you almost fear for her safety.

“Oh no!”

She runs to her cauldron to see her languidly boiling potion make all kinds of burping sounds. It had an orange color when you had entered, it now looked a deep purple, almost black.

“Oh, no, no, no!” She falls to her knees. You follow her after a couple of seconds when you realize she has no intention to stand up.

“It’s just a potion Penny, cheer up.”

“Just a potion?” She stares at you dumfounded, “I had a fall out with Rakepick this afternoon for this ‘just a potion’, of course it isn’t ‘just a potion’.” She quotes in the air.

“This ‘just a potion’ has taken me DAYS to brew,” she ignores your extended had while standing up, “you are so insensitive.” She pushes past you, and extinguishes the fire with a wave of her wand. She disappears from your sight banging the door on her wake. You are left stunned.

Only potions could go from hot to cold so fast. You can’t even find it in you to fight her anger back despite being the argumentative type. You feel partially responsible of this mess. You had been so close to kissing her as well, what were you thinking?

You close the door behind you only to meet with the night sky once again. In the vicinity, a familiar hoot seems to be mocking you. It isn’t a bad idea, you could definitely use some help.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry if there are mistakes. I just wanted to upload it guys, I’ll back track on it tomorrow. Thanks for all you who keep reading. Somehow this is becoming way too long! I’m just having way too much fun.
> 
> I enjoy reading your reviews and comments.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If vault searching taught you anything it is to enjoy the moments for what they are, and you are not going to let this one go.

You end up writing a chunk of letters to your family and friends in the kitchen late into the night. You lure Muck with a couple of dead spiders you had collected from training  _Impedimenta_  the last couple of nights. You don’t explain much. Not about your budding feelings for Penny, or your insensitiveness, only that you are in need of certain ingredients you currently lack.

It is not difficult to figure out what Penny had been going on about. A quick search around her potion lair revealed an old green leather book of potions, opened, to your great luck on the ‘ _Grand Wiggenweld Potion’_. You remember having to brew the Wiggenweld potion for your N.E.W.Ts not so long ago, yet you had no idea that modified or perfected versions or such existed. You wonder where Rakepick got hold of such a seemingly rare book. A quick search inside the ingredient cupboard disclosed an empty vessel of aconite as the only missing ingredient. Aconite, a relatively dangerous toxic plant used in potions like wolfsbane. Your eyebrows knit together. Not many potions used aconite as part of their preparation. If Rakepick had no more than a handful, you can only understand Penny’s mortification.

Guilt shots through your body. You suddenly feel very inconsiderate. Back when vault breaking was your thing, Penny never invalidate you like that. Jacob was never “just Jacob” or the vault breaking activities and plotting were never something to just “cheer up about”. It is at times like this that you are reminded just how self-absorbed you can be.

You can only hope someone writes back to you with ideas. Self-loathing is as useless as a Rowan’s nagging, telling Ben not to fret or keeping you out of trouble.

* * *

You end up napping in the kitchen, your arms crossed over the table as you rested your forehead. You are anxious, eager. The back of your head tells you it is pointless to wait for Muck to return so fast, most of your friends were probably sleep by the time they received your letter, but you do it anyway.

The shrill sound of a boiling teapot wakes you up from your slumber. You groan against the table. Your neck makes a loud and painful cracking sound when you rise. You decide to stretch against the table like a cat when you hear porcelain rattle.

“To what do I owe this miracle to?” It’s Penny’s voice.

It is so chirpy you can almost imagine the playful smile on her face. You look up. She is smiling at you brightly, as always, and you almost bypass the fact that she is teasing you. She could’ve put a quieting spell on the teapot as well, yet she didn’t. You can only guess she is still mad at you.

You can’t tell what time it is exactly, but rays of sunshine glimmer through the window and into her face. She is glowing. You are speechless.

“I made some tea for you,” she ushers the porcelain teacup closer into your vision. She opens her mouth as if to say something. Whatever it is on the tip of her tongue, she doesn’t disclose.

“You don’t have to say anything,” you reassure her. You know Penny like the back of your hand. You suspect she had meant to apologize and just couldn’t find the words. A rose-colored tint spreads over her cheeks. Her brows furrow and she heaves a distressed sigh.

“I was so awful to you, I…” she puts her hand over yours; it catches you out of guard. It takes all of your self-control not to stand up and run away right there and then.

“You weren’t, I was insensitive,” you croak helplessly. You feel hot all of a sudden. You want the conversation to end the fastest way possible before you say something stupid, or do something that you’d regret.

You don’t want to look at her but she searches for you. Ocean blue crashes against your pupils. Your throat closes to mutiny…and you stare at each other. Penny’s expression is unreadable. You can’t understand for the life of you what she means with this so you look away. If only you stared for a second longer you have no doubt in your heart you would have kissed her. Ravished her.

“I’m sorry.”

You are not sure if you hear her correctly. You see her lips move but no sound comes out, her voice if anything is barely audible. You do not follow her with your eyes, stunned, and only hear the clang of the door as she exits.

* * *

Rakepick pummels the ground with you that afternoon. You can’t concentrate. The ghosts of Penny’s irises and empty stare haunt you more than the Bloody Baron. You don’t want to think about it but you do and it drives you mental. What kind of sorry was that? Why did she have to be so damn cryptic all the time? And did she want to cry or was that your imagination? Did you make her cry?

It reaches the height of absurdity when a backhanded elbow to the face connects with your chin sending your pitiful self into the floor. Rakepick likes to mix muggle moves into her dueling persona, something she called martial arts. She had tried them on you before with very little success against your  _protego_ , except for today. You don’t even bother standing up after that. You feel the dirt pick up from her boots into your skin before she obscures your vision of the clear sky.

“You are particularly pathetic today,” Rakepick spits out with contempt. You can’t argue otherwise.

Every single one of her spells had hit you square in the face or chest. Every single fiber of your body ached. If not for the protective magic gear Rakepick had entrusted you with today and the restoration potion, you would have been unsightly maimed or dead by now.  

“Miss Haywood, unlike you, is a borderline genius at potions, a potential future potion master. Yet, I still wonder… why she is stuck following the likes of you here?”

Could Rakepick’s intuition about your nuisance be that good?

Her words, however, hit you like a bludger. You’ve never discussed that with Penny before. Surely, you had assumed her post-Hogwarts aspirations looked different to yours but you did not think twice about her intention to follow you that day. You had just blindly assumed that this was something you both wanted.

But, what if she didn’t?

You hear Rakepick sigh at your absent expression.

“You are one dense individual, aren’t you?” She gives you a skeptical look before leaving you alone to your thoughts.  That and the sun burning your skin. She does not send another spell or harsh word you way.

You are not surprised she had decided to call it a day after your feeble performance. Perhaps, she just pitied you as much as you pitied yourself, and for someone like Rakepick that is quite something.

* * *

You find yourself a couple of meters away from Penny’s potion lair. You can only stare at the fumes from afar. Rings and clouds of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple made their way to the sky that afternoon. You don’t see Penny, not even once. You assume she is working from all the smoke but she does not go outside, not even to eat. It makes you wonder just how much Penny overworked herself over the potions. If Penny loved something it is potion making. Ever since you met her on your first year at Hogwarts, how far away that seemed, she had been hopelessly in love with potion making. Rakepick is right, you conclude. Penny could be the apprentice to the best potion master in the world, applied to a Mediwizard School, become an apprentice healer, or start a potioneer business. Yet, she settled on following you, a curse breaker wannabe, into yet another adventure. It baffles you. You aren’t sure why you feel like crying but you do, and it makes you feel even more pathetic than before.

You hear a distinct hoot in the vicinity.

You would recognize your family owl anywhere. Knob would always find you no matter what. Knob is old a huge tawny owl you have known since ever, right from your first memories as a child. Its tan-colored feathers streaked with a darker brown always reminded you of tree bark. Its distinct feature, other than its size, a scar on the side of its left eye that resembled a star. You always found it funny that an owl named Knob had a star-like scar.

“Hello there, darling,” you coo to her when it perches beside you on the tallest tree closest to the potion pit. It reacts to your touch when your hand starts stroking its feathers. You didn’t know Knob could still travel such faraway distances.  

You untie a piece of parchment with your family wax seal tied to its leg. Your parents are the first to reply. It surprises you. Your decision to follow Rakepick on an apprenticeship had not been of their liking.  They had wanted you to take a sabbatical year, like many other post-Hogwarts graduates, and take your time to decide on a wizardly profession. Not that they would let you decide, you knew your parents had connections in the ministry and could easily land you an undeserved internship. You would never do that to the likes of Ben who had been sending owl after owl of references to land his spot as assistant to the Committee on Experimental Charms. Unfathomable.

The letter is brisk. It is your father’s handwriting; you recognize it for its sharp and long letters. Also, it is brief, unlike anything your mother would write. He mentions a person you haven’t heard before named Horace Slughorn. Apparently, he had been the potions professor before Snape, and both had been club members to his very exclusive Slug Club. They had written to him on your behalf and proceeded to list a couple of ingredients, he believed, served as suitable replacements for aconite. The news excite you. If you are honest, you did not expect this kind of help from your parents. It is pleasant surprise. You turn to your side, an excited smile forming on your face, to realize Knob is absent. You shake your head; you can always thank your parents later.

It is almost as if Penny reads your mind. The door to the potion shack opens with a bang, so loud it almost makes you fall of the tree. You see her run, dark cloak trailing behind her covering a very distracting pair of shorts, right into the cottage. You land on the ground with a thud with the help of a cushioning spell. Whatever it is that had made her run, it doesn’t matter. These news could not wait either.

You open the door to the house louder than you had meant to. You feel excited to tell her about the ingredients. This morning’s events quickly forgotten from your immediate memories. For some reason, you feel you can easily undo such an uncomfortable situation with good news.

You find Penny inside the kitchen. Her braids are sloppy on her back, an unusual sight. She is giving her back to you.

A familiar hoot hammers your attention. You find Muck on the verge of the window, staring at you mockingly, as always. You draw near and attempt to pet its feathers. Nor far from its place on the window, an unknown package wrapped in brown and an unknown postal stamp lays. Muck hoots again loudly, that turns Penny’s attention to you.

She seems on the verge of tears. It puzzles you, as a weird smile is gracing her soft features. Muck suddenly nicks you with its peak. You retrieve your hand hurt as you see it fly away.

“I guess I deserved that,” you chuckle dolefully to yourself. You had no dead animals to offer the owl after running errands for you, and Muck knew it.

You see Penny wipe the corner of her eye with her sleeve. You notice a piece of parchment on Penny’s hand for the first time.

“So, what’s up?”

“Charlie.”

You give her a deadpan stare. You don’t want to accept it but the sudden mention of Charlie irks you. The fact you had written him a letter as well completely evaporates from your mind. Under normal circumstances, you loved Charlie as much as anyone else, but the fact that something that Charlie had done made Penny look that vulnerable bothered you more than you are willing to admit.

“What about Charlie…” you trail off. You don’t want to be rude or crude but the insides of your stomach are clenching with so much force it is starting to hurt you.

“He is…” you hate her pause, “amazing.”

Stupid adorable, amazing, dragon loving, perfect, Charlie.

“I just,” she throws her hands in the hair in excitement before pushing the brown package your way, “just open it.”

Charlie left to Romania a couple of days after graduating Hogwarts. He had contacted Felix Rosier, much to everyone’s surprise, and he had landed him a spot in one of the largest dragon sanctuaries in Europe. Charlie being Charlie did not doubt in the slightest. The package in your hands had a purple postal stamp with the image of a dragon and words you did not understand. Under normal circumstances you would’ve teared through the packing but not now. Penny is looking at you earnestly, so you end up unwrapping the package with careful nervous fingers. It is a simple wooden box. You are unimpressed.

“Alohomora,” Penny points to the box with her wand beside you. She is too excited and you have outran her patience.

You hear a simple clink before she opens the small box. Inside, a note and a handful of the one and only  _Aconitum variegatum_ , a raceme of large, purplish blue flowers with five petaloid sepals. The note inside only had Charlie’s messy handwriting:

_You’d be surprised at what you can find in magical street markets in Romania. I trust this won’t be intercepted, Romania’s postal service is as lousy as it gets. Hoping you can continue your curse-breaking adventures,_

_Charlie._

Penny looks on the verge of tears again, happy tears and you feel like punching yourself. You quietly crumple your parent’s letter inside of one of your pockets. You feel dirty. You feel happy for Penny, you really do. You were the one that messaged Charlie for Merlin’s sake, but you aren’t the one behind her happy tears and smiles and it pains you. You are jealous, such a foreign feeling to you—someone who is used to get everything they wanted.

“Thank you,” Penny mumbles beside you waking you up from your reverie.  

“For what?” you give her a quizzical look. You feel inadequate beside her, undeserving of her friendship. A fire of self-pity ignited inside you, and it was making it particularly painful to think straight.

“Charlie told me everything, that you wrote him and all. I really appreciated it. It was unexpected. Charlie is amazing, but you,” she looks into your eyes before embracing you with her arms around your neck, “you are wonderful.” She hums into your ear and it makes a shudder travel down your spine.

Your heart squirms inside your chest before resuming its fast-track tempo. You close your arms around her waist as she rests her head over your shoulder. You cannot describe the powerful impression her words have left on you. Just as you are feeling at your weakest, at your worst, threading on fire, asphyxiating in self-loathing she comes to fix you up. A bucket of ice-cold water. The back of your eyes prickle. You feel it would be incredibly selfish of you to cry for no apparent reason, so you don’t. But, there’s a rawness in your throat you cannot ignore.

“I feel a bit guilty though, I can only wonder how much this could’ve costed Charlie.” You don’t really listen to her words, you are just enjoying the moment of Penny in your arms… “Aconite is known to be very expensive. I’m not surprised he just sent a handful. I should pay him back…” she is speaking into your ear, her voice the delicate melody of a musical box.

“We both know, Charlie won’t take our money.” You don’t want her to worry about such mundane things. You could repay him anytime, but chivalrous ever so perfect Charlie would never take it.  

“Oh!”

You untangle from the hug briskly, both of your hands now on her shoulders separating you. You really wish the moment could last longer but the situation merited it. Penny gives you a surprised look, treads of golden hair stick out of her usual braids. For some reason, it appears to you as if she is out of breath.  

You signal her one finger in front of you as you search inside your robe for a peace of crumbled parchment. “I owled my parents as well, and Horance Slughorn sent his greetings,” you offer your father’s short letter for her to read.

Penny stares as you, her eyes as huge as blue saucepans. “Horace…Slughorn?” You nod.

“Oh Merlin,” she takes a seat in the nearest chair.  

You don’t understand her amazement but you suppose it makes sense considering Penny knows a whole lot more about the potion making world than you do.

“My mom told me about Horace Slughorn, a long time ago.” She unfolds the piece of crumpled paper carefully. “She said he had been her potions professor and that I would certainly thrive under his guidance, I was somewhat disappointed when I learned he had retired…”

“Not that Snape is that bad,” she adds as an afterthought.

You groan, “Snape’s a git.” You slump on a chair moodily beside her.

Memories of many years antagonized by Snape go over you.

“He may be a git, but he is a very talented potion master—

“And a terrible teacher,” you interrupt her. Penny glares at you over the parchment, “What? You are gonna disagree? You taught me more about potions than he ever did!” you blurt out.

To be fair, that was a bit dishonest, considering Snape did teach you a thing or two, but you could not speak the same for the rest of your friends. And, teaching you a thing or two will never make up for all the alienation he did to you and the rest of your gang.

Penny’s moves a non-existent tangle of hair behind her ear before giggling.

“That’s very flattering, but he is still a pretty decent teacher.”

It rather puts you off that she takes your comment as a joke, but don’t comment about it as you watch her finish the short letter intently.

“Brilliant!” she squeezes your arm with excitement, it brings a smile to your lips, “Professor Slughorn is brilliant!” she announces to the kitchen.

“You know what that means, right?” she turns to you suddenly. You recognize a familiar glint in her blue irises. The corner of her mouth curl graciously, and to you that could only interpret mischief.

You shrug nonchalantly. You enjoyed her enthusiasm, but had close to no idea to what could be going through her mind. Although, knowing Penny for as long as you do, you could only guess she wanted to brew a dangerous potion or look for special ingredients.

“We are ingredient hunting.”

She lets go with an excited shriek before leaving your startled frame behind. You laugh at yourself, you really shouldn’t act surprised.

* * *

The sky is darkening in the horizon by the time you are ready to sail. You don’t do much side taking a shower and changing into your quidditch pants and a comfy travelling cloak. You wait for Penny in the courtyard, your broom at ready. After the broom incident in your 4th year, you decided to beg your parents for a broom as upcoming birthday present the following year. A hard feat for parents that were more than convinced that their only child left would use it to run away at any time in the future. Not that you wouldn’t have done it, you understood their anxiety perfectly. You ever told them that, though.

You feel a tap on one of your shoulders.

“Are you ready for another adventure?” Penny, unlike you, wears a pair of high waisted jeans and dark halter neck top, all muggle clothing she had been introducing to you on the last couple of days.

You feel suddenly self-conscious. You look like a dork beside her. You even had your flying glasses over your head.

“Maybe you should take a traveling cloak with you,” you look at your dirty Quidditch boots as you say this. Looking at her is making you dizzy as well.

“Oh.”

You hear her accio her travelling cloak beside you. You hit a pebble in front of you with the tip of your boot and see it hover a couple of meters away.

“Ready,” she brushes your arm with hers and your heart skips a beat. Even under a cloak, she has the power to make you feel all sort of things.

“Where are we going exactly?” you scratch the back of your head out of embarrassment. You are used to being the one on charge of things, on organizing adventure dynamics, and work out plans, not the other way arround.

“You asked me to wear a traveling cloak and you don’t know where we are going?” Penny starts hitting the ground with one of her sneakers, hands on her hips, as she shakes her head. Her smile is broad and you can only stifle a laugh.

Of course, she would poke fun at you, she is Penny Haywood.

“My bad, old habits die hard.”

“We have very few time left, the sun is setting.”

You swing your left leg over your broom and cover the handle with your riding gloves. She doesn’t have to say it twice. You might not have been a seeker like Charlie, but you were a very good damn chaser. If she needs speed, you are a good bet.

You give Penny a glance and motion your head to the back of the broom, “Hop on, come on.”

You give her a lop-sided smile. You sound confident and welcoming, you are sure of that, but a part of you worries travelling with a companion might be harder than anticipated. You see Penny heave air. From what you recall from your flying classes, Penny was not a bad flier, unlike brooms like to hit my face-Merula.

“Come’n, I promise not to hit a tree,” you tease her when you see her hesitate.

She returns your smile and takes a seat behind you. There’s a pause before you kick the ground with the back of your heels hard and feel the broom start to raise. The movement startles Penny who suddenly hugs you from behind, her hands wrapping clumsily around your waist. Her movement distracts you, as you are suddenly very aware of where every inch of Penny Haywood’s body is pressed against your back. You gulp and swerve to the side carelessly.

“Ahhhh!” Penny shrieks behind you, the grip around your waist tightens. You maneuver instantly. Sweat beads form on your hairline.

“Sorry ‘bout that,”

It would be very hard to explain your sloppiness. You figure making a case for “your boobs are distracting me” would be a sloppier move than you hitting a tree.

You try your best to concentrate on maintaining a steady hold as you start gaining height. Her grip on your waist doesn’t lessen. You feel grateful for the existence of cloaks. The proximity between your bodies is driving you nuts.

“Where to, Pen?”

You hear her whisper a disillusionment charm under her breath before answering. Of course, Penny is used to co-existing with muggles unlike you.

“The beach,” her voice is quiet, which you find confusing. If Penny had a fear of heights she never told you and it was never apparent.

You nod, despite knowing she had no way to see you answer. You pick pace as you motion the broom towards the beach a couple of kilometers away. You decide not to go fast and to travel as steady as possible. The wind hits against your face softly, like a kiss. You feel relieved today is not a windy day.

You sense Penny finally relax against you. Her head comes into contact with your back as her pillow. Your heart does not race this time, but it swells. As you travel for a couple of silent minutes, you can feel the warmness of Penny’s body against yours. It’s comforting in the way a soft bed after an intense Quidditch practice is comforting. It’s comforting in the way your mother’s stew in the middle of winter is comforting. In the way, finding Penny waiting for you by the end of every day is comforting. You wouldn’t change that feeling for all the adventures in the world. Your heart could live on this, you ponder.

Your landing is soft against the sand. Noiseless. Just as it started, it ends. Penny withdraws from you leaving your back exposed and cold. You untangle yourself from the broom as well and leave it on the ground. You can always accio it later.

The temperature by the sea is milder. The sensation of salt on the lips stronger. You are not used to it but you find yourself enchanted. The sun is setting on the horizon. You had never seen a sunset in the beach before. The sky is neither blue nor black but a deep orange as the sun is on the brink of melting into the ocean.

“I found it!”

Penny is shouting and motioning to you a couple of meter away.

The beach in Pendine Groove is not tropical. The sand is brown and grainy, the edge of the beach signaled by groups of small grey rocks, where the sand disappears into green grass. You reach Penny on said edge, huddling over the ground. You feel your cloak drag behind you as you approach her.

“What did you—?”

You don’t get to finish your sentence, however. Before you, a flowerbed of beautiful white flowers. You follow Penny’s stare to one in particular.

“What are we looking—?”

“Watch closer,” she interrupts you gently.

You squint; you don’t know what you are supposed to be looking at. The flowers are unfamiliar to you. The first thing you pick up is their fragrance, lemondrops, or at least that’s how they smell to you. Dumbledore’s image crosses your mind, much to your charging. The biggest difference you could appreciate unlike its siblings is its trumpet like appearance, unlike its siblings.

It moved suddenly, like a shrug.

“It moved!”

“It’s blooming.”

You hadn’t seen a flower bloom before. With the orange sky as its canvas, the flower uncurled, second by second, you see it unfurl from itself into a beautiful starry shape. Behind the darkening sky, it looked like a full moon.

“Wow,” you sigh into your words.

“These are moonflowers, they are not common around here so I was very surprised when I found them the last time I visited,” it surprises you to hear Penny had been to the beach without you. You offer her a hand for her to stand, which she takes.

“They are not magical or anything, but they are very pretty aren’t they?”

Her hands rest behind her neck now as she makes her way back into the beach. You follow quietly behind her, as you watch her cloak and hair soar with the light wind. Her frame against the sky, it’s breathtaking to you.

She finally sits a couple of meters away from the rising tide. The sun is about to disappear behind the ocean, and the moon is to make its appearance any moment. The tide could soak her iif she isn’t careful but Penny looked untroubled. Used to danger, you join her.

“My dad is a botanist turned pharmacologist, those words might not mean anything to you but that means we used to spend a lot of time inspecting flowers and its properties.”

She is hugging her knees to her chest as she stares at the sky. For the first moment in weeks, it hits you that Penny might be feeling homesick. It is a reminder of how different you are. You are not very close to your family, your search for the cursed vaults and Jacob had strained your relationship with your parents to a point of no return.

“Sounds cool.” You try to encourage her. It is not often that Penny Haywood opens up to you like this, to anyone.

“He saves people too, you know? Muggles. He finds cures for diseases, he is my hero.”

You are not sure if what you are witnessing is her eyes glazing over but it alarms you enough to interrupt her thought process.

“I thought I was your hero.”

She giggles at you before pushing your shoulder with yours, “Of course, you are both my heroes, except that I have to share you with the rest of Hogwarts…”

“Don’t even mention it,” you groan in annoyance. After solving the cursed-vaults your reputation around Hogwarts reached borderline celebrity status, and it had become mildly irritating. As much as you enjoyed attention, not being able to go around your daily activities without people following you around like lost puppies tired you out quickly.

“We should probably resume our search,” you attempt to stand up when Penny’s hand yanks into your cloak to motion you still.

“I might’ve lied to you.” She confesses.

She had not redone her braids, and threads of hair had made their way out of their place. Her golden hair shines in the twilight.

“The ingredients Professor Slughorn suggested are brilliant, yes, but not in the vicinity, I’m sorry.” She is looking at you with a soft shy smile. She does not look the littlest bit remorseful.

“Then, why?”

There is a pause as she resumes her admiration of the darkening sky. She doesn’t immediately answer you, when you feel her cold hand land over yours. An electric shock travels down your arm but you don’t move or say anything.

“This is nice.” Her voice is barely audible over the waves of the ocean. You are not looking at each other.

“Yeah.” In a sudden act of courage, you interlace your fingers with hers. Your body feels on fire against her cold hand and you can only hope to spread a bit of your warmth to her.

The tide had risen up like you had projected. You feel the sole of your boots start to dampen, but it doesn’t matter to you. In this moment, it just you, Penny, and night sky sharing a moment. If vault searching taught you anything it is to enjoy the moments for what they are, and you are not going to let this one go.

You are not going to let Penny go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It’s late but I promised myself I would finish it today. Here it is. 5k. This is getting out of control. I hope everyone enjoys.   
> Edit: fixed the typos.   
> I enjoy reading your reviews and comments.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Always right in the heart of some mystery.

Several days go by without any of you bringing that up. By the end of the week, you are prepared to give up on talking about it entirely. As last resort, you try to throw an offhand remark on one occasion, much to your amazement and embarrassment. Only to be met with a “What about that day?’,  ‘The sunset was nice, wasn’t it?’, and ‘It was such a boomer we got wet!’. It is almost as if that instant at the beach hadn’t happened at all to Penny Haywood. If you didn’t know her any better, you would’ve testified on veritaserum that Penny Haywood had drank a forgetfulness potion. 

You find yourselves easily falling back into routine as days go by day. You think It is for the best, you know, even despite the initial anxiety. Better to get it over with. You had never been good at the whole dating thing, anyway. Not that holding hands meant both of you would abruptly start dating. You had dated a friend before, if briefly, only for it to end in complete chaos. A neglectful partner too fixated on finding the vaults to commit to a romantic relationship.

You decided you were better off as friends, and that was that. Thankfully, you broke it off in good terms. It was hard not to.

To this date, you aren’t quite sure whether your friendship ever recovered from that hit. Hence, after such short-lived fling, forming a romantic bond with anyone simply evaporated from your desires. Until now. You had always liked Penny. Since day one. Who didn’t like Penny? How could you not? Liking Penny had always been so easy. Sunny, brilliant, kind, Penny. Unreachable, distant, mysterious, Penny. This fondness of yours is tiptoeing around your heart and it scares the hell out of you. Holding hands might not have meant anything to her, for all you knew. Penny is a natural flirt, that much is common knowledge. She might’ve felt lonely and homesick that day, and you —the only source of comfort in the middle of nowhere— happened to be at the right place and the right time.

You just held hands, right?. It didn’t have to be a big deal. Even if it was to you. Dating while being apprentices? A recipe for disaster, surely. Your friendship with Penny really is too precious to you to risk it like that.

You remind yourself of this as often as you need to. As you hear the soft hum of her breathing beside your bed lulling you to sleep. Until the memory of your intertwined hands falls on the back of your head for you to recall only every now and then.

* * *

You find yourself deeply immersed on a book about defensive spells when Rakepick enters the living room with Penny tailing behind her hot on her heels.

“Pack what you find most necessary for we are leaving at 10 p.m. sharp. I expect no delays; we’ll be leaving by Portkey. Questions?”

To this day, Patricia Rakepick’s ability to deliver orders still blows you away. Her level of confidence and presence left no room for doubt or disagreements. Not that you would ever confess that to her. You sense Penny following your nod at your side before watching Rakepick disappear behind the doorframe.

“That was unexpected,” Penny comments beside you.

‘You holding my hand out of nowhere, and never commenting about it was unexpected’ is what you want to answer but you think better of it. Not wondering about it, is, to you, still a work in progress. 

“Yeah.” You sigh and close your book with a thud. You don’t want to be distant or cold with Penny but it has become increasingly difficult for you to look her in the eye.

“Do you already know what you’ll bring on the trip?” You hear Penny trying to chitchat you before you decide to bolt towards the door to your room.

“I’ll be on it!”

You are not quite sure she hears when you close the door behind you. You feel so frustrated you kick your trunk with the sole of your dirty boot. This is so stupid. Being alone with Penny made your heart fret. Your mother used to stir you a calming potion whenever something was particularly wreckful on your nerves, but asking for a calming potion meant asking Penny for a favor and it made you incredibly nervous, almost as if, tiny mad pixies lived inside your stomach whenever Penny was around. Everything reminded you of her, the blue in the sky, the ray of sunshine that escaped through your window every morning, the sensation that overcame you whenever you drank your morning earl grey tea.

You hide your face into your pillow and sigh. It will be over eventually, hopefully, sooner than later. You are glad curse breaking always managed to prove a useful distraction.

* * *

You don’t see Penny much for the rest of the day. You busy yourselves over with different activities. What could be considered important to you had a completely different meaning to Penny Haywood it seems.

You decided to take your trunk with you. Despite Rakepick making the mention of only taking only what could be considered indispensable, you weren’t about to leave many of your belongings inside a house you were not sure you were going to return to. You had read Rakepick’s books, and her adventures and experiences remained far from safe. For Rakepick to abandon her jurisdiction under Gringotts after leaving Hogwarts for a solo expedition, it could only mean serious business. That and the fact that you still didn’t know where you were going is worrisome. It could be right in the middle of nowhere. Everything seemed highly suspicious to you and for that, this whole trip gives you an ominous feeling. If I all came crashing down, where would you go? What about Penny?

You don’t get to grill on this question when the door to of your shared room opens. A disheveled looking Penny tumbles on her bead with a sound thud. She is already wearing a long crimson robe over dark breeches and high boots.

“You look tired.”

She doesn’t even look at you as you watch her melt into her mattress.

“I’ve been sorting a portable potion rack and workshop. I’ve been brewing non-stop for weeks,” Her eyes are closed but you can still recognize the phantom of dark rings under her eyes.

You been doing nothing but read and practice spells all day long for weeks, and moderate physical training. The occasional sparring with Rakepick is proving to be the most physically and mentally exhaustive exercise in your schedule. However, preparing difficult potions could be taxing. You remember from your N.E.W.T.s experience, and feel guilty for not being particularly supportive to your friend. Penny, of course, never complained. You can’t help but think Rakepick had hit the jackpot managing to recruit her. Penny’s experience was closer to labor abuse than apprenticeship, if anyone asked you. 

“Why are you here for really, Penny?”

The question had plagued you ever since Rakepick pointed it out to you. Unlike you, she wasn’t receiving any guidance, and had just been ordered to brew potions nonstop for a yet undisclosed adventure. What could be in for her? She had already refused Rakepick’s offer as curse breaker once, back in your 4th year at Hogwarts. What could be different now?

“I still have to pack my trunk, why?”

“You know that’s not what I meant Penny,” You are sitting over your bed, legs crossed. Penny’s eyes open slowly, and she quickly gives you a sideway glance.                                                                                        

You lock eyes, your heart propels into a gallop. You feel like running suddenly, a part of you feels you don’t really wants to hear her answer, but it was almost as if your body had been hit by the full body bind curse.

Time moves agonizingly slow as you see her mouth move and wet her lips. 

“Why are you asking this all of a sudden?” Her voice is low and serious and so very unlike herself. It almost sounds scared to you.

It almost scares you too.    

The sound of heavy boots going down the stairs loudly interrupts you from even thinking of an answer. You hear Rakepick’s loud voice thunder through the walls. 

“Change of plans, we are leaving now! To the yard, now!”

You and Penny exchange knowing glances instantly. Your conversation will be moved to the back seat for now. Whatever reason Rakepick had to evacuate her home before schedule had danger written all over. The kick of adrenaline pumps to your veins.

“I’ll help you pack the rest,” You tell Penny before accio-ing your own dark travelling cloak.

Penny shakes her head and throws a small leather clad messenger bag into your hands.

“Put whatever you need inside. I used an enlargement charm on it. I’ve already packed all that I needed there. I’ll meet you outside. I still need to pick up something up.”

She runs  towards door, leaving you dumbfounded.

An enlargement charm on a bag? Brilliant. 

* * *

“Where’s Haywood?” Rakepick’s voice is brisk. She doesn’t even look at you as you arrive. Her eyesight set on the looming forest.

“What’s going on?”

You squint your eyes in the direction of the forest and despite your best efforts, you see nothing out of the ordinary. The sun is starting to set in the distance but there is still enough sunlight to be able to spot anything unusual. Rakepick’s uneasiness worries you.

“We need to go now.” She looks over her shoulder, over yours and it does nothing to calm your nerves.

“Why? What’s going on? We deserve to know!” You speak louder than intended and more certain than you feel. Rakepick’s unusually apprehensive eyes lock with yours. 

She grabs unto your arm, hard, “Listen kid, remember when I told you curse breaking is no dandy walk in the park and you might get people after you, eventually? Well, something terrible might happen to us if we don’t leave now. I might protect myself but I’m not sure I’ll be able to protect you.”

“I’m ready,”

Penny’s words break through the dense silence that had suddenly risen between you two. You are not sure whether she listened to Rakepick’s words but she lets go of your arm instantly. You don’t give her the pleasure of seeing you flinch. The probability of not living beyond this day suddenly downs on you. Your face is stoic, you don’t want Penny to worry more than necessary.

You see her take out a pocket watch from her pants and open it. In the silence of the yard, its ticking noise rose to prominence.

“We are using the bucket over there,” She points to an old tattered steel bucket a couple of feet from you. It suddenly displays an intense blue hue. You had failed to spot it ever since your arrival; only taking note of it now.

“Go.”

You touch the old tattered bucket and feel the now familiar twig under your navel before feeling the air being knocked out of your lungs. Your body sails with force downward.  You fall into tall green grass and weeds. This time around with much more grace than your previous experience. You feel Penny’s small hand cradle into your arm for support. You don’t brush her away as you see her steading herself. You try your best not to give it much importance. 

Someone is waiting for you. It is a middle-aged woman. She looks younger than Rakepick but far older than either you or Penny. She is also the shortest of the four of you. Her skin, light brown, with big almond-shaped tawny eyes. She had a bright yellow headband over her head that did a very bad job at managing her wild bushy dark hair. Her cloak, unlike yours, is sleeveless and brightly colored green. Her most distinctive feature is a tribal tattoo that went from her right shoulder right over to her upper arm.

“Paty! Como você anda querida? ” Much to your surprise, she envelopes Patricia Rakepick in a particularly long hug. 

You and Penny exchange surprised glances. ‘Paty?’ you mouth the nickname in silent disbelief.

“Not as well as you, it seems,” It is weird to you to listen to Rakepick sound gleeful, but she smiles genuinely at the unknown woman. You cannot remember if you have ever seen her wear a smile that did not carry a smirk before.

“Como sempre, Paty, como sempre,” she gives the older woman a loud peck on the cheek before turning to you. Her big feline eyes inspect you up and down.

“Who are you?” she asks you in English. Her words carry an accent you don’t recognize. The strong intonation of the /r/ giving her easily away.

You don’t wait for Rakepick to introduce you and tell her your name. You are not sure if telling complete strangers your real name is a good idea but you do it anyway. Much like everything you usually do. You elbow Penny beside you to follow suit.

“I’m Penny Haywood, nice to meet you,” The overly polite Penny nods downwards as sign of acknowledgement.

To this moment, Rakepick still hasn’t disclosed to you of your location.The trees are tall and green. The ground packed with tall green grass that reached well over your ankles. Ivy, vines and weed mounting over every single tree. The heat is mild, and humid, very unsettling to your soon sweat coated cloak.

“So, this are your protegés.” To you the dark skinned woman looks unimpressed. You can understand her; two youths just out of Hogwarts could hardly look particularly skilled.

“One of the best talents of their generation, they wouldn’t be here otherwise.” This is the first time you hear Patricia Rakepick compliment you. Your chest swells with pride. Your mentor-apprentice relationship is complicated, but hearing her confess she thinks so highly of you gave you a sense of accomplishment.

“We see about that,” Her accent is thick, and latin.

“Excuse me, where are we, exactly?” You wanted to add ‘and what are we supposed to be doing here’ but her incredulous stare cut your question mid-sentence. You grab into the hem of Penny’s robe instinctively. Her eyes were big and piercing, as if she could go through you. Like a big cat rounding a prey waiting the exact moment to attack.

“Paty, you do not tell?” She puts her hands over her hips. It made your crack smile. Someone lashing out at Rakepick, not everyone got to see that.

“We left early ‘cause one of their messages got intercepted. Of course, I did not tell them.” you exchange glances with Penny. Did she message Charlie or her family? Was that the reason why Rowan never answered your owl? You feel foolish all of a sudden. You could recognize Penny’s own regret across her face as well.

“That happen when you involve crianças!” She points a long manicured long finger at you, wild hair bopping over her head. You don’t understand what she means and you wonder whether you should feel insulted or not.

She closes her eyes as if to regain her composure before turning to you, “We are in the Amazônia, and follow you shall.” Her cloak twirls dramatically after her once she gives her back to you.

Your adventure had taken an unexpected turn. If you are not mistaken, you are now on the other part of the Atlantic. You give Penny a sideway glance to see her as awestruck as you felt.

“Ah, I almost forget. My name is Maria Aparecida Oliveira, you can call me Maria,” Her hair bops as she walks.

“Professor Oliveira,” Interjects Rakepick. 

You do not listen into the following quarrel as you are too taken aback to process what you are witnessing. You are in the middle of some jungle, right in the heart of some mystery, and you could not wait to figure it out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the hiatus. I needed to know where I was going with the story and finally found the motivation and drive to write something a bit more complex than I had planned originally. I hope you enjoy the ride from now on.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Your thrill for the unknown might one day be your great dismissal.
> 
> Not today.

You cannot recognize the direction in which you are walking with precision. All the jungle looks exactly the same to you. Tree after tree, vine after vine. Unlike Professor Oliveira, who navigated the jungle with such ease as if it were her home, you found yourself constantly fumbling with the uneven terrain, Penny constantly bumps against your back as a result.

Rakepick and Professor Oliveira come into a halt. You feel Penny’s body press against you again before she settles on holding the sleeve of your robe.

“Visitors first, por favor.”

It’s a tent under the disillusionment charm. You are pleasantly surprised. You had only read of this but never actually practiced it yourself. You knew very few people from the top of your head who could hold such charm for an indeterminate amount of time.

Rakepick goes first. You step aside to let Penny pass through. She looks at you as if you had suddenly grown another magical head. You can only assume she had never been inside a tent with an

Undetectable Extension Charm before.

“Just go,” You whisper. Noticing her hesitance, you take her hand into yours and lead the way.  

It isn’t spacious or anywhere fancy unlike the last tent you were in with your parents while on the last Quidditch World Cup. Unlike you, a true and loyal fan of Maximus Brankovitch, most of your vapid family members spent most of the five days of the that last Quidditch Final inside it.

On the back, there are two doors. At simple inspection, a small kitchen, with a stove and a breakfast bar with four wooden stools. All sorts of unknown plants perched in apparent order occupy the squared dining table. You feel Penny squeeze your hand before letting it go. The plants on the table are the first things that pick her interest.

“Do you know any of these, menina?”

Penny’s blue eyes shine in excitement, “Cordia verbenacea, for ointment against powerful magical scars, euphorbia tirucalli or naked lady can mimic almost any disease, and an awakening potion with Trichilia catigua can stop you from batting an eye for days.”

Maria Aparecida Oliveira smiles widely, almost feverishly, her resemblance to a cat, uncanny.  

“Maravilha, maravilha,” she grabs both of Penny’s hands into her bony ones, “Do you enjoy potion making, dear?”

“I _love_ potion making.” Her words carry emphasis, a doting mother talking about her child. Her blue eye glaze over. It is not very often that you see Penny’s eye shine with such excitement.

“Perfect! I sense, you and I will enjoy working together my child, very good, very good.” she pats

Penny’s hands before letting them go.  

Her tawny eyes are magnetic, neither of you can take your eyes of Professor Oliveira. It is almost as if you feel compelled to look at her. Her eyes a magnet, the unnatural feeling of it made a shudder run down your spine.  

A sudden thunder erupts through the tent, the familiar sound of a magical apparition. No one speaks as all heads turn to the entrance. The surroundings turn suddenly still, the idea that you had just escaped a persecution is fresh in your mind.

You unexpectedly feel the pointy but heavy pressure of a wand behind you. You even your breathing; the last thing you want to disclose to a potential enemy is fear. That much, you do know.

“Quem são?” the voice is deep and masculine. You are instantly confused. Despite having your eyes set on the door, your eyes did not manage to notice a single indication of movement.  

“I don’t understand you.” you speak through gritted teeth.  

The situation unnerves you. Penny stands motionless beside Professor Oliveira, her grip tight against her own wand, so tight in fact you can recognize a perceptible quiver. Rakepick, on the other side of the room, looks uninterested in your direction with no apparent intention of coming to your aid. Had this been a set up all along? What are you supposed to do in a situation like this? You are not prepared for an ambush…

“Nico! Eles são aliados, uncover yourself.” Professor Oliveira’s voice is loud and clear.  

You turn your head the moment you feel the pressure of the wood disappear from your back. Before you, the silhouette of a tall black man starts to materialize from head to toe. It is almost as he had been hiding under an invisible cloth. He towers over you; his deep sunken dark eyes connect with yours.  

You tense your grip around your own wand instinctively.  

“Nicolau Zumbi,” he nods in acknowledgment.

“He is my assistant; it is a couple of years since he is out of school, not much different from yourselves.”  

Professor Oliveira speaks casually, as if this stranger had not just threatened you with his wand.

Something in you screamed you to run, to escape, but your feet would not budge. Fear, strong and foreign, paralyzes you. A couple of steps from you, Penny Haywood looks unusually pale.  

“Excuse me, I did not know.” His words are morose, but his English, unlike his companion’s, is easier to understand albeit American sounding.  

“You have to understand, _crianças_ ,” you feel her bony hands on your shoulder now, warm against your tense muscles, “the Amazônia is a sacred area, home to a restricted number of botanical and  magizoological species, only wizards with a special permission from the congresso are allowed here.” 

“Do we have permission?” Penny ventures, still pale but noticeably more relaxed.

Oliveira’s laugh is loud and melodic, unlike any other laugh you had heard before. You can only assume the tent is charmed with a silencing spell as well.  

“Paty, are your children unaware of the way you work?” she can’t hide the laughter from her words as your attention shifts to your ‘mentor’. Rakepick doesn’t look humored, and remains nonplussed to your reproachful stare.  

You know Patricia Rakepick is self-serving and narcissistic, but jeopardizing your life without your acknowledgement is beyond utilitarian. Machiavellian. A total disregard of Penny and you as individuals. Had she told you from the beginning you were about to immerse yourself in an adventure bordering on illegal in another country, perhaps, you would have given it a second thought. You feel ashamed about these thoughts, considering the amount of dangerous misgivings you got your friends and yourself into as a student. Yet, the fear in your heart, for Penny on the most part, is real.  

Your body finally moves a step forward on Rakepick’s direction. Her impassive stare challenges you.

You feel Professor Oliveira’s bony hand tense over your shoulder. It is Penny who finally stops you, however, with a gentle hand over your arm.  

She does not have to say it, her hand, always gentle carries a firm ‘don’t do this’. You sigh through your nostrils in frustration. This is too much information for you to remain calm a minute longer.  

“You are probably tired from the trip; we can talk about this tomorrow, if you excuse me.” Her words are final as you watch Patricia Rakepick disappear behind one of the doors inside the tent leaving you dumbstruck.  

“Nico, offer them tea, _querido_ , it is a long trip, after all.”  

“That would be lovely,” Penny chimes in as she calmly guides you towards one of the wooden stools in the kitchen.  

You drink your tea in silence. You are frankly not convinced of trusting these people but you are beyond livid to think properly. You don’t really listen to what Maria Aparecida Oliveira has to say.

“This is an ancient brew of tea, far from magical but particularly recomforting”, she says.

Her words rapidly drift in the distance in and out of focus as words of retellings of her own travels and adventures go through deaf ears.   

* * *

 

“You’ve been silent.” Penny’s words are a whisper, conversely loud in the silence of the tent.

You settled on the opposite room to Rakepick. The room is empty, except for a desk and a candle. With you, two sets of blankets and pillow. Oliveira sent you to sleep after the tea, of which you did not drink a single drop.

You have had been so busy racking your brains about the situation you failed to notice Penny had not fallen sleep. Granted, sleeping on a flat floor does not make it any easy. The weather is so mild and humid you had to doff your travelling cloaks altogether by the floor.

“We should be sleeping.” You turn on your side to look at your friend.

You can barely identify Penny’s laid down figure over the brim of the dimming light emanating from the candle on the desk. If anything, it makes her look even more beautiful to you.

“Yet, you are not.”

“You aren’t either.”

“You should’ve drank the tea, it had valerian root.”

You wrinkle your nose in distaste. As long as your britishness is concerned, you cannot recognize other tea than Earl Grey, even if your life depended on it. As for Penny, there is no day she does not surprise you.

You cast a silencing charm under your breath.

“I don’t trust these people.” You confess lightly.

I don’t trust myself or why I allowed you to tag along, is an addition that remains on your lips. Other than anger, guilt has taken a permanent spot on your stomach.

You feel Penny move closer to you before whispering your name. The tip of the fingertips of her nearest hand interlaces with yours.

“Do you trust me?” she is so close you can feel the hotness of her breath over the humid air.

“Yes,” it is a certain truth, “do you trust me, Penny?” your eagerness betrays you. Your decision-making has disappointed you, and you fear, Penny as well.

“You are one of the most talented sorcerers I have met, of course I trust you.” She pauses, “it is my decision to be here, okay? Please, don’t fret about it. We’ll figure everything out. Like always.”  

Your pounding heart finally comes to a lull as you feel your stomach relax instantly at her words. It is almost as if she has been reading your thoughts all along, she knows you that well.

You get a glimpse of her tender smile as you see the light finally wane into total darkness. Her warm hand, however, remained over yours, right until slumber finally befell you.

* * *

 

_Tall brightly colored buildings surround you. It is nothing like you ever seen before. You don’t know why but a raising feeling of panic quickly takes over you. You are following someone, or is someone is chasing you, you are not quite sure. The tall brick structures are separated, only, by narrow and dark alleyways, making it feel like a maze._

_You look up only to see towering smoke intertwining with the dark sky. You hear shouting in the vicinity, your wand is firm on your hand, ready._

_Are you looking for someone? Why do you feel so panicky?_  

_Someone crashes into your shoulder with force, almost knocking you into the floor.  Bony hands grab you by the shoulders only to go into a fervent rant._

_“Isso é culpa da Macumba! Corra ou morra! É uma maldição!”_

 

A light shake on your shoulder wakes you from your slumber. You open your eyes blearily to meet a mane of bright straw colored hair. Penny is kneeling over you, her usually braided hair combed into a bun.

You want to smile at her but your body feels unusually clammy, as if you’d been coated by the thick saliva of a Cerberus.

“Maria told me to get you, we are leaving soon.”

Your throat feels unusually dry despite the humidity. You can even feel your white shirt pressing against your chest nastily. The thought of using Aguamenti on yourself crosses your mind briefly.

“Thank Merlin.” Your skin is not used to tolerating climates like these.

You take a fast look around to notice the room as empty as you found it. The wooden desk with an extinguished candle on the corner. Penny’s blanket neatly folded beside you. You look up to find Penny handing you your traveling cloak, folded as well, and with an unusual soapy smell.

“I might’ve scourgified it.” A light blush graces Penny’s cheeks before she leaves the room with a quiet, ‘hurry up’.

The image of what domestic life with Penny would be like pushes the recent memory of your dream on the back of your head as you decide on a change of clothes under your recently washed traveling cloak. It is a bit embarrassing for you to accept, you have completely forgotten the last time you had cleaned it yourself.

You exit the room to find Maria and her assistant, Nicolau, packing the last of their herbs and flowers into a big rectangular trunk. You share a scowl with an anxious looking Penny, who quickly reaches your side.

“Where is Rakepick?”

As far as you are concerned, your alliance to her, your mentorship, has suffered an important blow. You never really trusted her, not really, but suddenly abandoning you in the middle of nowhere with strangers didn’t look too good in your book.

“Paty is doing a Portkey, we been waiting for you. We cannot wait more and not compromise the mission.” Maria’s calm answer contrasts to your briskness.

You see her draw a golden pocket watch from under her green cloak. You notice it is not much different from Rakepick’s own, if not the same. As in on cue, one of the white porcelain teacups you had drank from just a night before starts to glow a intense blue hue.

“We have to leave now."

"One.”

You share glances with Maria.

“Two.”

You and Penny share glances.

There really is no other choice. Remain the middle of the Amazon or find out what exactly are you doing in Brazil. You can’t help but give her a lopsided grin. Sometimes, you can be really dense. And forgiving. And naive. And trusting. If something is ever going to get you killed is your sense of adventure and curiosity.

“Three.”

You see Penny reach for the teacup with you before you feel the now familiar feeling under your navel. Your stomach churns on an empty stomach and unforgiving bile. It is not much different from the adrenaline pump you feel everytime you ride over a broom at max speed. Your thrill for the unknown might one day be your great dismissal.

Not today.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for the delay. Real life got in the way. I had my very own next year promotion, and also fell sick. I wrote all of these on off chances I had at work, mostly. Hopefully, it won't show. Happy reading! And off to action we go on the next chapter!

**Author's Note:**

> My post-Hogwarts universe for MC and company. It was originally a two-shot or a very long one-shot but the story kept on growing in unexpected ways, so it is now a multichapter. I wonder where this will take us...


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